The sketch artist could have intentionally drawn the women as slightly disproportionate from reality just to make this piece more polemic. I don't see how that was prevented?
Agree - especially given that this was funded by the Campaign for Real Beauty, and it wouldn't exactly have supported Dove's ad campaign if the pictures looked the same or the sketch was reversed.
Yup; this is a "great" idea that falls apart when you think about it a bit.
The artist knows perfectly well what the intention is, and which group is which.
ALSO, the results are going to be skewed by standard rules of politeness -- even given a person with a perfectly balanced view of themselves, the way they describe themselves to a stranger surely should avoid being too praising (or they'd seem narcissistic), whereas someone else's description of them would be skewed to the positive side, also out of politeness -- who knows if the person being drawn is going to hear this description later, or is a friend of the artist, etc.?
It would be easy to do this better.
Imagine if this were (seemingly) a study about the value and accuracy of police sketches. Use multiple sketch artists, and let them know their sketches are going to be tested by IDing from a large lineup.
Some sources will be self-describing (i.e., someone very familiar with the face) and others will be someone with only a short encounter with the subject.
This is a plausible (fake) study, and the remaining problems (with the real intent) are much, much fewer.
I agree that this "study" is completely unscientific. But I think it definitely opens up a direction for further inquiry.
A counter to your point about politeness skewing the results is that the women who were shown the sketches of themselves afterwards clearly seemed to react in such a way that indicated that they realized they were too harsh on themselves, that they had negative views of their appearance which was unjustified, and that they were relieved/flattered to see how strangers saw them. So, it's not a proof of anything, but I'm just pointing out that womens' description of themselves seemed to be pretty reflective of how they genuinely viewed themselves.
Quite right -- I think there is something actually interesting here.
That's why I was so frustrated that they just went with the publicity stunt when this could have been real. it would have been a bit harder to spin into a slick documentary, but it would have been much more valuable.
That is common belief. On the other hand they see themselves in the mirror everyday and, I would think, they would likely have a far more realistic image of themselves, than a random stranger who just saw them for a short time. It would be really interesting to see this done under proper conditions rather than just a marketing gimmick.
Image has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with perception.
The interesting thing about this campaign is that it shows how strangers are far more complimentary about how people look than those people would be about themselves. We know our own perceived flaws far better than anybody else does; in our culture of image obsession, it is far too easy to assume that every person in the world is judging you for every little imperfection on your face and of your body.
There have absolutely been experiments conducted about people's self-perceptions as compared to others' perceptions of them. This is nothing new. But it's far more interesting to look at than your average psychological study, and since it's not saying anything especially groundbreaking – does anybody really think strangers would be more critical of a woman than that woman would be of herself? – "interesting to look at" is what matters.
>The interesting thing about this campaign is that it shows how strangers are far more complimentary about how people look than those people would be about themselves.
No, it asserts that. It does not show it. To show it would require a valid methodology.
With respect to "3d-ness", which presumably means the various cues your brain uses to determine depth (stereoscopy, focal length, vergence, texture variance, etc), there is no difference between an image through a mirror, vs an image with no mirror.
We don't know that though, people just say it based on what they think sounds reasonable. The point is, it would be interesting to actually find out how true that is, rather than just assume it based on nothing.
Sauce please. I disagree. You could say that some HUMANS see themselves as uglier than they actually are. The gender doesn't matter, and it certainly doesn't apply to everyone.
Surely you're not suggesting that this was (or should have been) some kind of scientific study? For all we know, they might have shot another 20 women who looked much better in the self-description than the stranger description.
It's just an interesting visual way to tell a story about body awareness. And of course, the whole point is to reinforce the Dove marketing approach, which is still a lot more healthy and wholesome than the typical cosmetic pitch (i.e. you're not beautiful unless you look like a skinny white photoshopped supermodel)
I completely agree with this, and I actually do think that they shot more like 10 women because at 5:37 in the video, a woman is smiling at what seems to be her own sketches, but they never made it to the website.
Yes, all of their ads feature people with great skin, which is a shame if you're someone with eczema or dermatitis pilaris or similar bad skin. Especially since those people buy a lot of product.
They make money selling nice versions of very simple gunk. I haven't checked, but I hope they're not doing the science-BS of "skin tightening" or "lip-plumping" that other brands do.
As far as ad campaigns go, I have been impressed by Dove's work in blending very interesting techniques together to give people an "Aha!" moment of new perspective. This one and the photoshop plugin are for me the most surprising, but the entire "Real Beauty" campaign is well done.
Yes, and in the next commercial for Axe, women are objectified and treated as total objects by the men than desire them.
Both Dove and Axe are Unilever brands; they just target different seems of the population with messages that they know will resonate. It's great marketing, not social good.
Yes. And the amazing thing is that it despite its terrible potency, it doesn't even hide the smell of BO. Men soak themselves in it, and then they smell like they just got home from work at the cheap cologne factory and haven't had a chance to take a shower.
Please tell me that I'm not the only one astounded by the kind of doublethink that's being taken at face value en masse. This is a beauty company, and it's not giving a message of "you're actually more beautiful than you think", it's highlighting how insecure people are about their looks, and presenting their brand as the solution, now SOCIALLY as well as just aesthetically.
It's masterful, but it's more of the same. Just more subtly.
It'd be more grating if their main products were make-up; I think they're mostly on the soap/shampoo side of things -- which can arguably be more about "just be clean and you'll look nice" as opposed to "paint this gunk all over yourself and then you'll look nice".
Exactly. They're saying women are beautiful as they are (or more specifically, more beautiful than they think), not that Dove's product (soap) makes them more beautiful. I don't think or expect our community at large to appreciate this distinction, but it's an important one and definitely not "more of the same" for this kind of gender-specific marketing.
I never knew that sketch artists were able to make such accurate drawing from verbal descriptions alone. Every time I've seen this on TV the interviewee is able to see and correct the developing image.
Heh reminds me a project i made 2 years ago.
A local newspaper asked me for an artist intervention on a full page.
To keep it short:
I send my parents to a professional photofit guy from our national police (he never saw me, nor knows me, nor has seen a pic etc.) and made my parents describe me to him.
It's a work about identity, how the people that are very close to you see you and ofc the obvious link photofits have with the medium newspaper.
Aw, I opened it thinking it would be interesting to compare the fit with your photo, but there was no photo of you. This is just a sketch of some imaginary guy, then. What's interesting about that?
She was one of those nordic women with big bones, literally, when she was a model you could see easily several of her bones and she was more or less masculine.
When I dated her, she was overweight by her standards (but had a perfectly normal weight actually, she was underweight when she was a model), this made her "bonyness" get bit hidden and her body got natural feminine curves, also her face was very beautiful (you ever saw a ugly model?).
Yet, I remember how odd to me it sounded when she wanted to have sex with me (I was not much sure about it, I was virgin) but with lights off. I was like: "Alright, you want to convince me to have sex, but with lights off?" Then she claimed that she was too fat and bony and she looked like a transexual...
I was kinda shocked... But over time this did not really go away, it would not matter how much I would reassure her, or how much other men looked at me with obvious envy, or how beautiful she really was, she always for one reason or another thought herself ugly. This is one of the reasons the relationship fell apart... But I never forget it, I dated a woman that was rich, powerful and a model, but she kept thinking herself weak and ugly (specially, fat with protuding bones... So yes, there are people that would describe themselves like that)
In the particular case of models, that can be way worse, as it is a very competitive field where you're constantly compared and measured against other (obviously gorgeous) models.
I imagine that being a model put your self-esteem under a huge presure.
I think most people find models unattractive. Most models are gaubf skeletons (human clothes hangers) with creepy facial expressions for the catwalk, and ridiculous clothes.
Movie stars, rock stars/dancers, very attractive. Models, not really.
I'm not sure it's as simple as that culturally re self-criticism. Women are trained not to be assertive in general and to think that you are one of the beautiful people is considered a huge assertion. Beautiful is something other people are, celebrities and models. It really is a self image thing. It's like if you're 70 and have decided you cannot possibly learn computers, you never will because you'll constantly look for excuses to reinforce your self image.
"Oh my nose is slightly large," "my lips are too thin," "my face is too bony," "I'm too fat," etc etc. Anything not to rock the boat of your self image.
I see my face everyday and know all the details that make it ugly. I barely pay attention to such details on the average strangers face. The times I've been asked to describe someone for the police I was always surprised at how little I remembered about their looks. So I think this little "experiment" more shows the fallibity of eye witnesses.
Those wondering about the multiple ways this could be biased, keep in mind that by far the easiest way, in which everybody thinks that they are being honest, is by publication or "reporting" bias.
Advertising & marketing strategies to women are usually implicitly negative and designed to tie their value/desirability/self-worth to the additive product being sold or an unattainable ideal that the product hopes to fulfill. This is the complete opposite of that. So, marketing and unscientific approach aside, I applaud it on that basis alone.
Seriously!? We can't stop being cynical, hyper-analytical computer nerds for 5 minutes?
This isn't a study. There's no academic rigor to apply. It is a commentary. It's a commentary that almost anyone who has either been a woman or been in a relationship with one can probably identify with or relate to.
And yes, it is advertising. I have no doubt that no one walked away from that video not realizing it was advertising. So what? Advertising isn't allowed to say something positive, or dare I say, honest?
What? Is it because they're a multinational and not a startup?
Oh, I didn't realize this was a contest to see who could be the most sanctimonious.
The video calls attention to the fact that women often focus on their flaws more than their positive features. If you find a lie in there somewhere, it's because you're judging it on the criteria of something it isn't trying to be, which says nothing about anyone or anything other than yourself.
What if this is reinforcing an idea that's widely believed, but doesn't actually exist? Here's a story about similarly sensationalized story that preyed on women's insecurities:
> It's a commentary that almost anyone who has either been a woman or been in a relationship with one can probably identify with or relate to.
I'd go further and say that everyone who has been a person can identify with. It's a human thing to notice things about yourself and think that people also notice it about you, because you know yourself better.
I realized years ago that I didn't look at faces as a sum of parts, when a friend I knew for more than a year told me his nose was too wide. I looked at it and realized that, indeed, it was a bit wide. I was stunned that I saw him every day for more than a year and had never noticed his nose.
It's not limited to the same sex. A girl I know had visibly crooked teeth, and at some point she had them fixed. When I saw her a few months later, I knew something was different, but I couldn't put my finger on it until someone mentioned it.
Or maybe I'm just super-unperceptive, I don't know.
<sarcasm> Indeed, Unilever is one gigantic, completely homogenous organization, controlled by a single, duplicitous mastermind. </sarcasm>
Back when I first became involved in pitching major brands, I learned very quickly that different groups within any sufficiently large organization can have vastly different values, principles, and priorities. And, most importantly for me at that time, different budgets.
It's brilliant because it is framed as if this is some kind of informal experiment, which is all that is needed to tap into the insecurities of women that have self-esteem issues. Even rational women will be affected by this (just as rational men would be should it be targeted at men).
The brilliant thing about this advert is that it captures the audience with intrigue, and then breaks down the "facts" while at the same time telling women to really feel more beautiful than they think they are. What this does is it gets buy-in from the audience so that when the advert proposes soap and cleanliness to further the idea of beauty.
In one study[0] about persuasion, it was found that when you try to advertise or sell a product, making statements or representing a world view that the audience can agree with first will make them more likely to agree with you when you then pitch them the product.
As for the "honesty" of this, a real study is posted elsewhere in this thread that points to the contrary.
Scientific research in this area points in the opposite direction: woman, like man, see themselves as more attractive then they actually are. In the following study, photos of the subjects were merged with photos of more attractive and less attractive people of the same gender. The subjects identified themselves more often in the more attractive photos rather than the less attractive ones, and even more often than in the non-adulterated photos: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/nicholas.epley/EpleyWhitchur...
83 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 147 ms ] threadThe artist knows perfectly well what the intention is, and which group is which.
ALSO, the results are going to be skewed by standard rules of politeness -- even given a person with a perfectly balanced view of themselves, the way they describe themselves to a stranger surely should avoid being too praising (or they'd seem narcissistic), whereas someone else's description of them would be skewed to the positive side, also out of politeness -- who knows if the person being drawn is going to hear this description later, or is a friend of the artist, etc.?
It would be easy to do this better.
Imagine if this were (seemingly) a study about the value and accuracy of police sketches. Use multiple sketch artists, and let them know their sketches are going to be tested by IDing from a large lineup.
Some sources will be self-describing (i.e., someone very familiar with the face) and others will be someone with only a short encounter with the subject.
This is a plausible (fake) study, and the remaining problems (with the real intent) are much, much fewer.
A counter to your point about politeness skewing the results is that the women who were shown the sketches of themselves afterwards clearly seemed to react in such a way that indicated that they realized they were too harsh on themselves, that they had negative views of their appearance which was unjustified, and that they were relieved/flattered to see how strangers saw them. So, it's not a proof of anything, but I'm just pointing out that womens' description of themselves seemed to be pretty reflective of how they genuinely viewed themselves.
That's why I was so frustrated that they just went with the publicity stunt when this could have been real. it would have been a bit harder to spin into a slick documentary, but it would have been much more valuable.
The interesting thing about this campaign is that it shows how strangers are far more complimentary about how people look than those people would be about themselves. We know our own perceived flaws far better than anybody else does; in our culture of image obsession, it is far too easy to assume that every person in the world is judging you for every little imperfection on your face and of your body.
There have absolutely been experiments conducted about people's self-perceptions as compared to others' perceptions of them. This is nothing new. But it's far more interesting to look at than your average psychological study, and since it's not saying anything especially groundbreaking – does anybody really think strangers would be more critical of a woman than that woman would be of herself? – "interesting to look at" is what matters.
No, it asserts that. It does not show it. To show it would require a valid methodology.
When I step back from a mirror (or don't wear my contacts), I think I look good. but up close I see patchy hair, blemishes, color variation, etc...
It's just an interesting visual way to tell a story about body awareness. And of course, the whole point is to reinforce the Dove marketing approach, which is still a lot more healthy and wholesome than the typical cosmetic pitch (i.e. you're not beautiful unless you look like a skinny white photoshopped supermodel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE#t=337s
They make money selling nice versions of very simple gunk. I haven't checked, but I hope they're not doing the science-BS of "skin tightening" or "lip-plumping" that other brands do.
I'm sorry, but that's just uninformed bullshit http://www.adverbox.com/ads/dove/
No, they don't show people with severe skin issues but really, that's a little unreasonable for a company selling skin care products.
" I haven't checked, but ..."
Ahem
My thought was that we, as individuals, don't really know what we look like. Sure we see ourselves in the mirror but how much detail do we see?
I see my wife all the time and could probably have a pretty accurate sketch drawn of her but if I had one drawn of me it would be pretty far off.
Both Dove and Axe are Unilever brands; they just target different seems of the population with messages that they know will resonate. It's great marketing, not social good.
Axe: Get bitches
Dove: Because bitches deserve to be got.
It's masterful, but it's more of the same. Just more subtly.
To keep it short:
I send my parents to a professional photofit guy from our national police (he never saw me, nor knows me, nor has seen a pic etc.) and made my parents describe me to him.
It's a work about identity, how the people that are very close to you see you and ofc the obvious link photofits have with the medium newspaper.
I removed it from my webpage (www.medium.lu) as i keep only a selection online so i exported a .pdf for u if anyone cares to check it out: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25637921/hn/identified.p...
Cheers
Genuine, deep emotion used to make an association with a product.
And the emotional experience is real, regardless of the marketing.
This will be a super-successful ad, way beyond their work on this campaign so far.
She was one of those nordic women with big bones, literally, when she was a model you could see easily several of her bones and she was more or less masculine.
When I dated her, she was overweight by her standards (but had a perfectly normal weight actually, she was underweight when she was a model), this made her "bonyness" get bit hidden and her body got natural feminine curves, also her face was very beautiful (you ever saw a ugly model?).
Yet, I remember how odd to me it sounded when she wanted to have sex with me (I was not much sure about it, I was virgin) but with lights off. I was like: "Alright, you want to convince me to have sex, but with lights off?" Then she claimed that she was too fat and bony and she looked like a transexual...
I was kinda shocked... But over time this did not really go away, it would not matter how much I would reassure her, or how much other men looked at me with obvious envy, or how beautiful she really was, she always for one reason or another thought herself ugly. This is one of the reasons the relationship fell apart... But I never forget it, I dated a woman that was rich, powerful and a model, but she kept thinking herself weak and ugly (specially, fat with protuding bones... So yes, there are people that would describe themselves like that)
I imagine that being a model put your self-esteem under a huge presure.
Movie stars, rock stars/dancers, very attractive. Models, not really.
This is why when I dated her, she was a former model, and "overweight" (by her standards).
If she was still a model, I would pass... I am not into stick bags.
Not every model is a skeleton wearing over-stylized clothes on a runway.
In fact, this might blow your mind: the majority of models aren't that.
"Oh my nose is slightly large," "my lips are too thin," "my face is too bony," "I'm too fat," etc etc. Anything not to rock the boat of your self image.
This isn't a study. There's no academic rigor to apply. It is a commentary. It's a commentary that almost anyone who has either been a woman or been in a relationship with one can probably identify with or relate to.
And yes, it is advertising. I have no doubt that no one walked away from that video not realizing it was advertising. So what? Advertising isn't allowed to say something positive, or dare I say, honest?
What? Is it because they're a multinational and not a startup?
The video calls attention to the fact that women often focus on their flaws more than their positive features. If you find a lie in there somewhere, it's because you're judging it on the criteria of something it isn't trying to be, which says nothing about anyone or anything other than yourself.
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/newsweek_discovers_doomed...
I'd go further and say that everyone who has been a person can identify with. It's a human thing to notice things about yourself and think that people also notice it about you, because you know yourself better.
I realized years ago that I didn't look at faces as a sum of parts, when a friend I knew for more than a year told me his nose was too wide. I looked at it and realized that, indeed, it was a bit wide. I was stunned that I saw him every day for more than a year and had never noticed his nose.
It's not limited to the same sex. A girl I know had visibly crooked teeth, and at some point she had them fixed. When I saw her a few months later, I knew something was different, but I couldn't put my finger on it until someone mentioned it.
Or maybe I'm just super-unperceptive, I don't know.
Hang on. Dove is owned by Unilever, a company that also owns Axe body spray. What kind of ads does Axe run? Well, here's a few:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9tWZB7OUSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpTGaENQNNg
In other words, they're selling the Barbie stereotype with their left hand & selling the anti-Barbie stereotype with their right.
I think it's perfectly acceptable to call bullshit on a company that does both.
Back when I first became involved in pitching major brands, I learned very quickly that different groups within any sufficiently large organization can have vastly different values, principles, and priorities. And, most importantly for me at that time, different budgets.
Also: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division
It's brilliant because it is framed as if this is some kind of informal experiment, which is all that is needed to tap into the insecurities of women that have self-esteem issues. Even rational women will be affected by this (just as rational men would be should it be targeted at men).
The brilliant thing about this advert is that it captures the audience with intrigue, and then breaks down the "facts" while at the same time telling women to really feel more beautiful than they think they are. What this does is it gets buy-in from the audience so that when the advert proposes soap and cleanliness to further the idea of beauty.
In one study[0] about persuasion, it was found that when you try to advertise or sell a product, making statements or representing a world view that the audience can agree with first will make them more likely to agree with you when you then pitch them the product.
As for the "honesty" of this, a real study is posted elsewhere in this thread that points to the contrary.
[0] http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/10-0352%20The%20R...