Dove never ceases to amaze. A few years ago, her products were advertised by five “ordinary” women of various ages and physiques. Now the company has carried out an unprecedented experiment, inviting women to choose whether they are beautiful or “ordinary”.
In five metropolitan areas—Shanghai, Sao Paulo, London, San Francisco and Delhi—Dove installed double doors at business center entrances. Above one of them they hung the inscription “beautiful”, above the other – “ordinary”. Women entering the building, willy-nilly, had to choose one of the options. An unusual experiment, Dove Choose Beautiful, showed that most women do not feel beautiful.
This study has not been carried out in our country. But the Russian division of Dove conducted a small survey among employees of the beauty industry, asking them: “What are you – beautiful or ordinary?” Nearly 27% of women whose job is to make people beautiful answered that they themselves are completely ordinary (1). The company assumes that such an answer would be even more popular among other Russians.
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The new social project Dove Choose Beautiful is part of the brand’s large-scale campaign “For True Beauty”. It started ten years ago after an international survey showed that only 2% of women consider themselves beautiful. The aim of the campaign is to spark a public discussion about the nature of beauty and free us from stereotypes about appearance. To show that a beautiful body does not have to fit in size S, and wrinkles around the eyes, like gray hair, can be incredibly attractive. It all depends on how each of us feels in our body. After all, beauty is not only appearance. This is our daily selection.
(1) The Dove survey, which took place in early April 2015 in Russia, included 140 women.