Controversial Adverts - Dove TV Advert 2015

Dove's 'Choose Beautiful' Campaign Advert

This Television advert for 'Dove' showcases how women in five different cities worldwide (San Francisco, London, Shanghai, São Paulo and New Delhi) have difficulty with deciding what door to go through; 'Average' or 'Beautiful'. By going through either one of the doors, they are labelling themselves with what they think about their own appearance.

Dove had the aim to make women think more highly of themselves and to not take what the media's idea of what beauty is which is narrow-minded and unattainable. They wanted to replace their thoughts and give them the idea and message of female empowerment and promote self-esteem within themselves. 

However, a lot of women seem to disagree with the advert as they feel they don't necessarily have to feel beautiful in order to have high self-esteem and female empowerment. They add that instead of using the terms 'average' and 'beautiful', Dove could've used qualities such as intelligent, funny, kind or unique.

Additionally, in the advert, Dove confronted the women who were about to walk through the 'average' labelled door about their choice which automatically gives the women the idea that if they continue to walk through the door, they have low self-esteem.

This advert was made by Dove off of the 2004 study called 'The Truth About Beauty' which was updated in 2011. They found that "only 4% of women find themselves beautiful"; most say they're "average."

Screenshot of two women walking through the two labelled doors 'average' and 'beautiful'.

What do I think about this advert?

I think this advert reaches the aim of what Dove is attempting to do, which is to promote and boost womens' self-esteem and confidence so that they can feel better about their appearance and features. I feel that this completely works as the media as an institution has a much more narrow-minded thought into what they think 'beauty' is; which is to be skinny and slim. However, this advert conveys that there is much more to what the media defines beauty is and that everyone is beautiful in their own way.