Introduction and overall evaluation
It was reasonable for Dove to do campaign against photo-enhanced advertisements
Beauty and cosmetic producers often use photo-enhanced advertisements for their products. Photo-enhanced images deceive vulnerable potential customers who end up purchasing those products, some of whom are of low quality and standards.
Firms use photo-enhanced advertisements due to stiff competition in the industry, thus an effort to gain competitive advantage over other the competitors. Therefore, Dove intervened with the promotion trend in order to sensitise consumers on the tricks applied by producers when persuading customers to buy their products.
Dove carried out an initiative to promote all types of natural body images of women
The main objective of the campaign was to promote self-esteem in vulnerable females, easily deceived by photo-enhanced advertisements. Women care about their body images, and thus many players in the cosmetic industry use attractive images in promoting their products to women. Dove campaigns bar firms from using fake images on their product promotions as a moral obligation to protect the society from unethical businesspersons.
However, Dove is also a player in the cosmetic industry and cannot avoid using women imagery in product promotion campaigns. Most of its products are skin-firming cellulites that enhance women’s self-esteem. In order to drive the point home effectively, Dove used natural images of women in campaigns for its products. It is not possible to make consumer products and fail to exploit women because Dove exploited women in an effort to promote their self-esteem.
I would recommend Dove to continue with the campaign against abuse of women imageries in advertising. However, I would recommend Dove to change its moral approach by applying images that are pleasing to the public. Furthermore, I tend to believe that Dove prepared for criticisms that would arise against their campaigns from the beginning. Therefore, they should continue with the campaign and ignore the criticisms, but consider changing the images.
Campaign Critique
Dove used unimpressive materials in the campaign efforts. Natural images are not impressive because they disclose the physique that women try to eliminate from their bodies. In addition, the majority of women hate fat bodies and due to that element, firms opted to use thin women in their advertisements to impress the targeted consumers. However, Dove should stick to their advertising material for they are the best for carrying out the sensitisation to the women.
Strengths and weaknesses of the Dove campaigns
Strengths of the Campaign
- Promotes ethics in the business – Photo-enhanced images are deceiving and thus unethical for a vendor to use them in an effort to attract customers. Dove’s campaign is ethical and beneficial to customers who often fall into traps of unethical vendors in the beauty and cosmetic industry.
- It is sensitising the women whose rights are violated: The campaign is sensitising women about violation of their rights by vendors and firms that produce beauty products for economic reasons. Hence, women acquire knowledge about the types of advertisements that they should believe in before purchasing the products.
- Promotes self-esteem:- Dove campaigns are for promoting the self-esteem of women who dislike their natural physique, and thus end up falling into the traps of deceiving vendors; In addition, it targets young females and encourages them to acknowledge their physical as they age.
- Fights against sub-standard products: Firms producing sub-standard products take advantage of photo-enhanced advertisements in acquiring market share. Dove campaigns bar firms from taking advantage of unethical advertising methods, but rather concentrating on producing high quality products.
- Promotes natural looks- By using natural images, women are inspired to appreciate their natural looks coupled with appreciating the physical appearance of their colleagues. Photo-enhanced images deter women from appreciating natural looks of their colleagues.
Weaknesses of the Campaign
- Use of unimpressive images: Dove used natural images that were vulnerable to criticisms in its effort of promoting self-esteem to women. Natural images are unpleasant to the public arena although there was no alternative to bring the intended message home.
- Economic impact: Effort to persuade women to acknowledge their natural physique had a negative economic impact. Players in the beauty and cosmetic industry started to count on losses after many women reduced their purchasing power on their products.
- Failed to promote skin-firming products- Dove’s campaigns turned against its products as the public viewed it as a hypocrite player trying to gain market advantage over other players. There were criticisms that its campaigns were more of advertisements aimed at eliminating competitors from the market. Hence, the targeted consumers received Dove’s skin firming products with a bad attitude.
Rating of direct marketing is not an easy task, but done with regard to its effectiveness
The increase in the product’s sales volume is the ultimate measure of effectiveness of direct marketing. Percentage increase in sales volume is divided by 10 in order to obtain 1 to10 rating system, whereby 1 refers to absolute awful performance and 10 refers to great performance.
Dove needed to strengthen its campaign by two major factors into consideration
Those factors included ethics and its interests in the industry. It is unethical to display natural images that are disturbing to the public. For instance, there have been many criticisms on images of fat women displayed in the campaigns advertisements. It would be prudent for the company to consider using images that are pleasant, but natural.
In addition, Dove had economic interests in the industry, which put it under public criticisms. In order to strengthen its campaign, it should have pulled out of business and concentrated on the campaigns. Pulling out of business is a good move in the public arena and hence public would give attention to the campaigns.
Campaign Creation
Dove is a new entrant in this business of sensitising public against fake products’ advertisements. Therefore, it has no competitors in the market, but the business focuses on the promotion of ethics adherence by other businesses. Even if a firm has no competitors in the market, that is, it enjoys monopoly in the market; it has to adhere to some rules and regulations as set by the authorities in a given location.
There are four main process of the campaign creation. The first step involves identification of the problem. Dove observes that businesses persons are using photo-enhanced advertisements that deceive customers, and end up frustrating clients after failing to meet their ends.
The second step for campaign creation is the development of the solution to the problem. In this case, solution to the problem is campaign against photo-enhanced advertisements for cosmetic and beauty products. In addition, dove considers some factors before carrying out the campaign.
These factors are business ethics and the effects of the campaign. To begin with, business ethics demand that businesspersons should uphold the value of the products and honesty to their clients, which they had failed to comply with thus opting to use photo-enhanced advertisements. Therefore, dove found itself in a good position to carryout the campaign.
Secondly, dove needed to consider the effects the campaign would have to the public. The theme of the campaign was to create awareness to the public that cosmetic and beauty products do not bring the desired changes in the human skin as their advertisements dictate. Therefore, public should not rely on advertisements for information about them.
The third step is the development of the campaign. In this step, dove needed to consider the best method for the execution of the campaign depending on the nature of the target genre. In this case, the most affected clients were youthful and middle aged women and therefore decided to use natural images that would strike them hard.
In addition, it noted that photo-enhanced images were of skinny sized women and decided to incorporate fat women. In addition, dove identified the best method of campaign as advertisements in the televisions and billboards along the major highways and city streets.
The fourth step is execution of the campaign and evaluation of effects on the public. Initially, the public cannot welcome this new form of advertising because natural images are disgusting to the eyes of the public. However, dove prepared for criticisms from both the public and the businesspersons after which the public would react depending on how it responded to the criticisms.