Dove and Advertising

I usually never watch ads when I am on Youtube. However, when a Dove commercial comes on, I be sure to watch it the whole way through. This is because Dove is absolutely brilliant when appealing to women and gender issues.

Whenever I see a Dove commercial, I immediately want to go out and buy every Dove product I can get my hands on. As a young woman, I think Dove knows how to appeal to an audience that uses their product the most: women. I know this because they appeal to me, and are some of the best advertising I have seen

What exactly is advertising? It is a from of media with a goal of selling and consumption of products. (Wilson, Marketing and Advertising).

Dove commercials evaluate beauty norms and what it means to be beautiful. Dove is also the only company I have seen on television that discusses what it means to be a young girl or woman in our society.

In this commercial, women from all over the world choose whether or not to define themselves as average or beautiful by walking through two door ways. Most of the women start out walking through the Average door, and they talk about why they chose that, some saying that they didn't even have to hesitate. Another woman says that she didn't know if she chose Average because of what has been told to her, or what is constantly bombarded at her. Another women even says that beautiful is too far out of reach for her. As the commercial comes to a close, these woman start to make the choice to choose beautiful.

The commercial is called "Women from all over the world make a choice"

What I like most about this commercial is that not only does it represent real struggles of women, but women of many different cultures under one common problem: how women see ourselves.

In multicultural media, underrepresented groups connect more to brands that acknowledge their struggles in their advertising (Dr. Steele, 2016). This is one reason why Dove is brilliant, because it obviously knows what it is doing: appealing to women of all cultures and backgrounds, and acknowledging that we all face certain struggles as women.

Media scholars Blumler and Katz coined the uses and gratifications theory when it comes to media use. This theory suggests that we have an active role in seeking out media, and media that appeals to us emotionally, socially or psychologically. It also suggests that us as media user are goal-oriented (Dr. Steele, 2016). This fits in pretty well with Dove's advertising as well.

This commercial particularity appeals to me because it shows what women deal with socially and emotionally. Most women do struggle with the way we perceive ourselves, which is what this commercial is aiming at. Dove has many other commercials that will tug at your heart strings.

I think in a consumer driven world, it is nice to have commercials that make you think.