Why Self-Esteem Shouldn’t Come From A Bottle
A few weeks ago, I watched a movie on TV with my family that got me thinking about the issues of self-esteem that young girls and women face. Interestingly enough, this train of thought wasn’t brought about by the movie; instead, it had more to do with the main sponsor of the film – Dove, the personal care products brand. Instead of simply airing commercials, Dove presented short segments at each commercial break that featured mothers and daughters talking about ideas or activities they do to feel good about who they are and how they look. As a man, I have to admit I found these conversations reasserted the notion of men and women being from different planets, the ideas and concepts verging almost on being alien in nature. But as a father of young girls, I found the mere idea that such measures were useful or even necessary for improving self-esteem in girls, as well as women, troubling to say the least. And yet, the idea that caught my mind’s eye most was not so much the message, but the messenger itself.
I’m sure everyone has seen examples of Dove’s recent ad campaign “The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty“, which essentially presents the idea that all women are beautiful in their own way. It’s a great message of self-esteem and empowerment and their ads certainly put forth a compelling case. To wit, Dove produced an advertisement called “Evolution” which helped to demonstrate how fabricated those images of alluring models on billboards actually are -
Dove didn’t stop there, though, as they used their campaign as the basis for creating the “Dove Self-Esteem Fund” which, among other things, offers workshops for young girls to build their self-esteem and sense of their own beauty. Looking at all these initiatives, it’s hard not to be impressed with the Dove brand, that is until we look at the other ad campaigns being run by Dove’s parent company, Unilever.
In addition to Dove, Unilever is also the company behind the personal care products brand for men, Axe. For those who are unfamiliar with Axe, here’s an example of one of their advertisements -
Clearly, the Axe commercials present women in a whole different light, making them out to be nothing more than mindless sex-crazed automatons that are easily swayed by chemical scents. Granted in a market catering to personal products for men, it’s understandable that the Axe brand would take this approach to sell their product. Then again, perhaps the obvious nature of this approach is also another factor for why Dove’s countering campaign is so compelling, if not badly needed.
In the end, though, what does this say about Unilever’s attempts to empower women in building self-esteem through their Dove campaign if they’re willing to promote the sexist notion to men that women should be viewed as nothing more than a means for sexual gratification? Don’t their commercials for the Axe product line contradict the message they are trying to push through their Dove product line? On the surface, the answer would appear to be rather obvious. However, as the old saying goes, nothing in life is ever simple.
In point of fact, although the Axe brand’s advertising campaign does indeed perpetuate the sexist attitudes toward women that the Dove brand attempts to challenge, the reality is that at the end of the day, both of them are nothing more than advertising campaigns geared toward their target audiences. After all, product advertising has always relied on creating the impression that the product in question will improve our lives in some manner. While it’s obvious what benefit the Axe product line purports to offer to its male clientele with the tag line “Spray more, get more”, the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” also seeks to suggest benefits to its users, not just by claiming to improve the outward beauty of its clientele as its competitors do, but also by implying a sense of solidarity with women. In the lucrative, multi-billion dollar industry of personal health care products for women, Dove seeks to align itself with the everyday woman by telling women they understand the pressures they face to create and maintain an idealized version of female beauty. As much as we’d like to see some noble, community effort in this beauty campaign by Dove, the reality is that this “Campaign for Real Beauty” is far from altruistic, with Dove making sure its brand is always well in view of these efforts, lest anyone forget whose pushing the message across.
Naturally, as a father of young girls. I’d much rather they be bombarded by this advertising campaign by the Dove brand than those from the Axe brand. And yet, I think acknowledging the reality that these two contradictory presentations of women arise from the same parent company should make us understand that the real education about how men and women should perceive themselves and each other is the responsibility of parents and educators, and not the corporate world. Perhaps then, we might finally have that level of mutual respect between men and women that always seems just outside of our reach.
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I believe you totally misread the DOVE commercial. It says that women need a lot of help to appear beautiful as a model. Not only did the plain looking girl have many makeup artists redoing all her features, and hair dressers creating a specific ‘look’, etc. After all that, she wasn’t good enough. She needed a computer program to redo her structural features, coloring and touch up some more. Then she was enlarged and put up on the billboard. What does this tell young girls? You are not good enough as you are.
For the second commercial. AXE is playing this whole thing up for the men who are sex driven. It shows scantly dressed Amazonian women [surely hand-picked for this commercial] running wilding through the forest, climbing mountains, with a back-drop of romping dolphins in the sea – giving it a playful feeling of community, all running toward some goal. The twist was they were not simply going swimming in the water. It ends showing this man wearing a supposedly alluring scent to attract all these women. What a bunch of bull. It makes the man out to be the sex object. Don’t they want to be loved for their intelligence, accomplishments, ability to be a good father, sincerity, honesty, responsibility and other really good traits?
Who watches tv these days anyway. Too many commercials.
Find your purpose in life and go after that.
DebbyBruck, HomeopathyWorldCommunity
Hi Debby, thanks for stopping by.
In regards to the Dove “Evolution” commercial, the point of the ad is not at all to tell girls that “you’re not good enough as you are”. Read the end tag line again – it says “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted”. In other words, they are stating that the notions of what defines female beauty are not based on realistic examples, but on a manufactured and manipulated presentation. As such, it’s no surprise that girls and women have difficulties in trying to reach this purported ideal since its obviously unattainable. Also, if you check out the links I provided in my article to the various Dove sites, you’d see that their campaign is about women celebrating who they are and what they look like at any age, and not feeling like they have to attempt to fit into a very restrictive definition of what female beauty is.
As for the Axe commercial, I can’t imagine where you got the impression that the man in the commercial is the sex object. Without question, he’s the object of the women’s obvious desire, but men are not being objectified here as sexual objects like women often are. Indeed, notice that unlike these women who can’t help but be drawn to him, the man in the piece is clearly in control since it’s the man whose using the product to pull the women toward him. In fact, looking at that one scene showing his outstretched arms spraying the product, you can’t help but get the impression of him being like a matador, attracting the bull toward him whenever he chooses. So, how does that make the man the sex object here and not the women when he’s the one putting things into action while the women have no choice but to react without thought? And yes, there are men out there who’d rather be loved or appreciated for their other traits – as much as women do – but obviously those men are not a part of this product’s target audience and why such notions won’t appear in any Axe commercials.
It’s easy to be dismissive about the realities to conform to these notions of female beauty or how the sexes interact. But as a parent, I can tell you that’s not only unrealistic, it’s unfair to your children because it denies them the chance to break the cycle and feel not only respect for who they are, but love themselves for what they look like, even if they don’t match the notions of beauty they see paraded about on TV, magazines or in the movies.
Again, thanks for stopping by Debbie, and for sharing your thoughts on the subject.
I too think you’re misreading the commercials a bit, though not for the same reasons as Debbie. The Axe commercials are deliberately absurd — we’re not supposed to believe the product can do this. Nobody really thinks women are like the babe-mobs in those commercials. With their over-the-top ads, Axe is making fun of subtler commercials that do try to make you think some cologne or body spray will make you irresistable. That kind is everywhere, and it’s the kind to worry about.
As for the Dove campaign, doesn’t it seem condescending to you? They don’t actually care, they just think this will sell. If they really felt that glamorous models were promoting unhealthy self-images or whatever, they wouldn’t do some self-congratulatory campaign — they would just hire less glamorous models and try to influence the industry that way.
- Z
Hi Zeke,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to disagree with some of your statements, the first one being your remark that no one’s supposed to believe the scents found in Axe products would be attractive to women. If that were the case, why then would anyone buy their product? Remember the first and only goal of advertising is to sell the product. It’s not to poke fun at their industry or its attitudes; it’s to get their target audience to buy their product by offering them the impression that it will offer some advantage/improvement to their lives. Will their product turn women into mindless zombies? Of course not, and I don’t think anyone, including members of their target audience, would believe that for a minute. The issue here instead is the fact that the Axe brand has to present women in such a fashion to cull the notion that women would be attracted to men who use their product, which, by the way, is the point of their campaign.
As such, your idea that Axe would intentionally spend millions of marketing dollars simply to make a subtle jab at other campaigns, as opposed to attracting their target audience to their product, doesn’t wash. Besides, your argument fails to explain their tag line “Spray more, get more”. Again, I urge everyone to visit both product sites in question to really get a better impression of what ‘visions’ they are trying to associate with their product, if not to remember that ad campaigns are not designed to be attractive to all segments of the population, but for the key demographics of their target group. Just because it appears absurd to you doesn’t mean it’s not having the desired effect on those the commercials are targeting.
As for the Dove campaign, of course the purpose of it is to sell products. As I wrote in my post above, it is first and foremost an advertisement campaign (and by the way, they have indeed used “less glamorous models” in their campaigns, examples of which can be found on their site which I provide links to in my article). The problem here is that people are thinking that this could be something more noble, that Dove is actually trying to change the system as it were.
There’s a reason why you never see promotional campaigns for the parent company Unilever, because then we might see the contradictory, if not hypocritical, messages being presented to the public. And no company is interested in creating that kind of image for their brands.
Thanks for stopping by and adding your thoughts to the discussion.
To me, the point you are making is that no matter what the advertising campaign or how noble it might seem, (or otherwise), it is still business and if we expect to find our self-esteem somewhere in there, we are looking in the wrong place. I strongly agree with that.
Perhaps it is that we help our daughters and sons understand and believe that their value can never be measured by the yardsticks created by others.
That is exactly the point I’m trying to make, Gwyn. Unquestionably, there is a lot of pressure on girls (and regrettably, it appears boys are now starting to feel that pressure, though not to the same degree) about their appearance and it’s naive to think it has no impact on their self-esteem.
What parents need to be aware of is that we shouldn’t leave it up to marketers or companies to help our children learn how to filter out this noise; that being a parent means making the time to listen to the concerns of our children and help them build the tools within themselves to overcome these pressures and nurture their sense of self-worth from within themselves.
Thanks Gwyn for your comment. I appreciate your adding your thoughts to this discussion.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Leslie Carothers, Tanveer Naseer and Gwyn Teatro. Tanveer Naseer said: RT @GwynT: I just read @TanveerNaseer’s post called “Self-Esteem in a Bottle”. He makes some gr8 pts http://bit.ly/aA2uZ6 *Thanks Gwyn! [...]