Why Dove wants to reverse the selfie trend

Last month saw the release of a new campaign for Dove which focussed its attention on the selfie culture.

Created by Ogilvy London, the spot highlights the potential damage caused by the trend for heavily edited selfies, especially to young girls and women. A 60-second film [below] formed part of the campaign, which directed people to Dove’s Social Media Confidence Kit on Dove's dedicated website. The brand first looked at the unnatural beauty standards imposed on young women back in 2006, with its Evolution spot, which showcased advertising's own culpability in setting these standards. 

We had data telling us that women’s self-esteem was at an all-time low.

In the years since Evolution, social media has exploded and this campaign is more specific to how those social platforms can be a source of anguish for many. Here, Dove's Global Client Lead, Jo Bacon, and Daniel Fisher, Global ECD on Unilever at Ogilvy and WPP, talk about why the campaign was needed and the impact they hope it has.  

Above: Dove's recent Reverse Selfie campaign.

The recent Dove campaign highlights the potential mental damage that the selfie culture can engender; what was the initial jumping off point for the creation of the campaign?

DF: Dove has been fighting unrealistic beauty standards for the last two decades but, despite this, we had data telling us that women’s self-esteem was at an all-time low. And nowhere was that fact more apparent than with the next generation of girls who are under 24/7 pressure on social media to edit their selfies and keep up with their peers. Unilever commissioned research that uncovered a heart-breaking statistic that, by the age of 13, 80% of girls have distorted their selfies online, and we all knew that we had to do something about it. 

[Dove Evolution] opened the world’s eyes to the toxic practises of the media and advertising industries.

Dove tackled the anguish that unrealistic beauty standards can cause in its Evolution spot, which was 15 years ago; what sort of an impact do you think that campaign had at the time? 

DF: It opened the world’s eyes to the toxic practises of the media and advertising industries, and is one of those campaigns that genuinely had a huge impact on society. In the States, the film was widely adopted by schools as an educational tool, something that still happens today.

Above: Jo Bacon and Daniel Fisher.

Do you think that the arrival - and immense growth - of social media has negated any gains that campaign may have made?

DF: The campaign was very impactful, but the landscape has changed dramatically in the past few years and the world of social media has ushered in a new set of threats. The harm done by re-touching apps and filters is significant, but they are just starting to become apparent.

The landscape has changed dramatically in the past few years and the world of social media has ushered in a new set of threats.

Do you think that brands, in general, have used social media platforms wisely and with due consideration to young people's mental well-being?

JB: Brands have enormously improved how they immerse content into social media over the years. They have realised the power of creating social platform-specific content that is entertaining, engaging and impactful. It’s not the brands that drive the issues often created in the echo chambers of social media, it’s the communities and layer it provides between people and reality. It’s the lack of awareness of the impact of their own words can have on others