2022 Gold Brand Building

Agency: Ogilvy UK

Client: Unilever

Campaign Name: Reverse Selfie

Campaign Overview

Girls today grow up in a fast-moving, judgmental society with beauty trends held firmly in the eye of social media. To regain its radical “Real Beauty” point of view, Dove needed to detoxify beauty for the next generation.

Strategy

Dove’s research revealed the shocking insight that 80% of girls distort the way they look on social channels. The solution involved raising awareness of the dangers of a seemingly innocent filtering and photo-editing culture on popular platforms.

The apps pressure girls into altering their images to the point where they’re hardly recognisable, in turn damaging their self-esteem - and causing ‘selfie dysmorphia’. An attendant rise in cosmetic surgery has been cited as the lead cause for an increase in teen suicides.

The campaign needed to impact selfie culture, but in a way that didn't alienate the target audience of mothers and daughters. The Dove Self-Esteem Project aimed to reveal the unknown lengths girls go to in manipulating their selfies; raise awareness of social media pressures; and ask parents to have conversations with their girls about social media, using the project toolkit provided.

Creativity

The creative idea showed the damage retouching apps can do to young girls' self-esteem.

Ogilvy UK updated Dove's 2004 film Evolution - about magazine retouching - for the selfie-generation, revealing that while the enemy has changed, the impact has not. The campaign was supported by brand ambassador Lizzo in a digital launch event and on her feed, gaining a considerable following and igniting the conversation.

Supporting the campaign, Lizzo posted herself naked under #NoDigitalDistortion, galvanising other celebrities and women to follow her lead and do the same, generating huge earned media in the process. Lizzo's perspective and personal experiences of facing unrealistic beauty standards matched the authenticity seen in the creative.

The campaign launched on multiple platforms to reach millions of parents and guardians. It was shared on social media and dominated headlines and talk shows. Importantly, it encouraged parents to talk with their daughters, and society to question the role of social media

Results

The campaign was Dove's most successful, running in 20 countries, and generating mass awareness for the issue and the actions taken by Dove. The initiative achieved six billion global impressions, with 3.2 billion in the US alone. It garnered 147 US media placements. Some 99% featured a key message, with 97% mentioning the campaign name.

The online launch event reached 78 million, double the Project#ShowUs benchmark of 30 million. Lizzo's post received two million likes in one day, generating more than 35,000 comments and becoming her second most-liked post of 2021.

Among people exposed to the campaign, favourability increased by 19%, affinity by 21%, and Dove's key brand purpose measure of “inspires women to feel positive about the way they look” rose from 50% to 58%.

Awareness of Dove Self-Esteem Project increased from 17% to 67%, with weekly toolkit downloads reaching nearly 43,000. Significantly, 180,000 lives were positively impacted, exceeding benchmarks by 3.5 times.

The Team

Unilever - Alessandro Manfredi Global Dove, Executive Vice President - Sophie van Ettinger, Global Brand Vice President, Dove Masterbrand - Edoardo Briola, Global Brand Director, Dove - Leandro Barreto, Global Vice President, Dove Masterbrand - Hugo Rawlinson, Global Brand Manager, Dove Masterbrand - Alix Colin, Global Brand Manager, Dove Masterbrand

Contributors

INDEPENDENT, EDELMAN, HALPERN PR, and MINDSHARE