When the Dove team decided to use real women instead of professional models to launch its new Firming range, it was clear that this was going be no ordinary advertising campaign. With a refreshing take on beauty, a celebrity photographer, and real women with real curves, the promotion had all the ingredients to get people talking. Through clever use of PR, Dove managed to achieve massive media coverage, including a national debate on body shapes.

The simple key to success of the campaign is that a lot of women buy beauty products to make themselves feel good. It’s a way of telling yourself you’re special. And this tought should take us marketers to consider if sometimes we are making our own lifes harder than necessary: shouldn’t we be developing more “real life” campaigns, simple ones which easily connect with our customers’ primary feelings? May be this is precisely the difficult issue and the explanation of why we keep making up not only reality but our own communications…

Giving the campaign another twist, Dove’s marketing team shows some advertising tricks: After finally being exposed to real women on posters, the public got to see the real women behind the posters.

Really too much Photoshop Marketing around Fashion Industry advertising lately! Don’t you think so?

Best regards.

Manuel Angel Alonso Coto