Analysis Of Dove's Real Beauty Campaign

As of the modern day, advertising is everywhere; it is on our televisions, we hear it on the radio and we see it on cars and trucks. Advertising can take many forms, one of which is propaganda. Propaganda techniques are useful in persuasion and drawing people to a certain cause but mostly we hear of propaganda being used in times of war. However, the Dove’s Real Beauty campaign is a modern day example of propaganda that uses many known techniques of persuasion. This campaign is very prevalent in today’s society because it targets body image among women; more specifically, the campaign aims to positively change how women view themselves. Lee & Lee (1972) describe multiple types of devices that are associated with propaganda such as, name calling,
1). In order to achieve a certain result, propagandists rely on developed techniques used in the majority of advertising campaigns. Dove is a company who utilizes propagandist elements in their advertisements. Dove’s intent is that their campaign will help to solve the issue of self-esteem in women by using propaganda techniques. Some techniques Lee and Lee describe as, relating an idea to something bad, associating something with a word most would consider moral and using objects that are considered respectable and then carrying that respect onto another object (1972, pp. 23-24). These are all common ways to increase the effectiveness of propaganda and specialized to a specific audience, but the main techniques used in the Real Beauty campaign are pathos and
[This] phase of the campaign was created to debunk the stereotype that only thin is beautiful” (“The Dove® campaign for real beauty”, n.d.). This part of the campaign was monumental because “all women in the ad are real.” (Fielding et al., 2008). Because the concept of real women was implemented, women were able to relate their own self-identity, flaws and overall body image to the women on the advertisements. The use of “real people” in Dove’s campaign helps people realize that average citizens can still be as beautiful as the people that are consistently portrayed in the usual advertisements. These real people offer a connection to an individual’s everyday body issue struggles and allows Dove’s audience to recognize the fact that beauty should not be limited to western societies view. Ultimately, this section of the campaign allows viewers to make personal connections to the models in the advertisements which furthers Dove’s intentions of the Real Beauty