Rethinking beauty for a gender-fluid future.
Dove
Context
SVA Masters in Branding Graduate Thesis, “Engendered”
Advised by Dr. Dan Formosa and Natalia Formosa
Role
Strategist; Researcher; Copywriter; Art Director
Team
Kelly McPharlin
Gloria Biggers
Sarah Fassberg
Shrutika Manivannan
Challenge
Despite Dove’s success in helping a variety of women feel beautiful through their Real Beauty Campaign, the brand reported in the 2024 Real State of Beauty Report, the beauty industry continues to be a source of anxiety and trauma. The question remains: if real beauty has become the norm, then why don’t women feel beautiful? Dove now has the opportunity to liberate not only women, but every body from the binaries imposed by the beauty industrial complex.
As part of SVA’s graduate thesis “Engendering,” we explored how Dove can reposition to align with shifting attitudes towards gender.
Process
Competitive audit
Historical analysis
Consumer research
In-depth interviews
Positioning framework
Naming and verbal
Creative concepting
Strategic Response
Dove has relied on a version of self-esteem that was contingent upon the physical, external self and beauty as a source of confidence. But relying on beauty as a source of confidence traps you in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred. Dove has perpetuated the gender binary by selling products along gendered lines, with their classic Dove products with soft, white, curved lines and Dove Men+Care that takes visual cues from Axe. Dove markets to women by selling “real beauty,” a positioning that no longer serves as a point of differentiation. Despite the brand’s persistent use of the term, “beauty,” Dove’s ultimate mission is to increase confidence. We recommend Dove exit the beauty industry and reposition to inspire confidence for all bodies, no matter the gender.
The campaign will begin with the question, “If everybody woke up confident, what would the beauty industry sell?” to challenge internalized preconceptions imposed by a system designed to make every body feel inadequate.
On a more intimate scale, we will launch a campaign designed to ignite conversation around the gender binary, asking the public to consider why certain words are reserved for certain genders.
Dove will exit the beauty industry,
including renaming the iconic “Beauty Bar” to the “Body Bar.”
Dove will release a Manifesto video to announce the transition from
the Campaign for Real Beauty to the Campaign for All Bodies.
Dove will release the “What do you Embody?” video because every body shouldn't be limited to one side of a binary. Dove believes you can embody everything you are. And as you are, you are enough.