Pastor and Author
Have you seen these ads from Dove? I don’t think anyone would argue that body image in our incredibly image-conscious culture is a huge deal. I’m intrigued with how Dove is interacting with this issue.
So is Dove simply using this issue to make more money, or are they actually doing our culture a service by shining a creative light on body image? And does it matter?
They’re doing it to make money, certainly. No “for-profit” company does ads without that in mind.
However, that doesn’t make it mutually exclusive from the second statement. They are definitely doing something awesome for our culture by saying “HEY GIRLS! THIS “IDEAL” IS A LIE!” At least that’s what I see in the ads. And that’s awesome.
On top of that, there’s a commercial of Dove’s that my wife absolutely loves for their shampoo or conditioner or something, that deals specifically with mothers. It shows like the stages of a woman’s life (teens, dating, marriage, first kid, more kids, etc.) and eventually, you see this woman just breaking down physically, which is TOTALLY realistic, because, honestly, no person can stay 100% with it when you have kids and get older, cuz that’s just how it works, you pass on your cool and hip to them, and let them carry it around till they give it to their kids, right? Right??? LOL)
Anyway, it ends with her using their shampoo and her hair goes from crazy kid-lady to awesome starlet-whatever… And yeah, it’s a little against the rest of the campaign, but my wife appreciates the honesty in it, and she thinks it’s one of the best commercials out there right now. So yeah. 🙂
Hi David,
It would be nice to have a 3rd video that tells us more about the “Dove’s Mother Daughter Workshops.” From the 2nd video, it sounds like the workshops have a good goal – to help build self-steem.
David W. Swanson 
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