Mary Lawrence

ENGL 137H
Mary Miles
Embracing Inner Beauty: A Rhetorical Analysis
Unilever, the parent company of Dove beauty products took a bold step in April of 2013
by releasing a short film, as part of their Real Beauty campaign, which was designed to connect
directly to their market and reach the essence of what it means to be an individual instead of just
a consumer. In the short film, Dove Real Beauty Sketches, each woman describes her physical
appearance to an interviewer, who unbeknownst to them is an FBI sketch artist. The women are
then told to become familiar with another woman in the group, and proceed to describe the
physical appearance of that other woman to the sketch artist. In turn, the sketch artist creates two
sketches of each woman, but from different perspectives, to demonstrate the difference in the
way each views herself and how others view her. The result is an excellent comparison of the
harsher view each woman has of herself and of she perceives the world views her and how the
world actually perceives her. Through this comparison, Dove proves that our view of ourselves is
influenced by what the public believes is the definition of beauty.
Initially Dove Real Beauty Sketches was directly targeted at women because most women
tend to be very conscious and critical about their appearances. There is significant pressure on
women and girls to be beautiful and skinny, whether it is self-inflicted or from external sources.
A closer look at society shows that even men, although not at the level of women, are subject to
the media onslaught of proven weight loss formulas and look younger in days beauty
products. It is evident, however, that no matter how many beauty products and weight loss
drinks people use, higher self-esteem and greater confidence cannot be bought or guaranteed.

The purpose of the Dove Real Beauty Sketches advertisement was to shed light on the
harsh standards the media has set for people. Women are constantly given the message that to be
beautiful one must be stick thin and have perfect hair and skin. Comparatively, men are given the
message that one must have six-pack abs and large biceps to be considered attractive. The
exigency for men and women to fit into an ideal standard of beauty fosters feelings of
inadequacy.
This short film highlights and contrasts the individuals feelings of inadequacy as
visually depicted by the sketch artist in the two different sketches. Dove designed the Dove Real
Beauty Sketches promotion to encourage women, their primary audience, to see not only the
beauty within themselves, but also to recognize the beauty that others see in them. The primary
focus of the short film was not to be a marketing tool for Dove products, but rather be more of an
anti-marketing tool promoting beauty without the use of products. Dove attempted to connect
with their audience at its core by appealing to pathos. The audience is drawn in by the sadness of
women not being able to see their true beauty.
The difference between Dove Real Beauty Sketches and most other advertisements is that
Dove didnt come out and tell its audience that they need to buy their beauty supplies to improve
their appearance. Dove intentionally avoided attempting to persuade women to buy anything and
instead focused their video on invoking the audiences emotions. By using this approach in the
video, the audiences reaction was to feel good towards the company. The audience felt satisfied
knowing that Dove supported natural beauty and not cosmetic beauty. In fact Doves name was
not mentioned anywhere in the advertisement until the very end of the video, where the logo was
simply flashed before the screen went black.

This emotion-provoking advertisement focused on womens feelings instead of their

physical characteristics. The first drawings, which were self-described, were harsh and drew
attention to what these women thought, were their flaws and that those flaws were obvious to the
whole world. These drawings depicted the flawed view that the women had and communicated
to the FBI sketch artist which resulted in the sketches being distorted by their critical selfperception and not really looking like the women. The second drawings, which were described
by another woman, looked much more like the woman being described. When the women were
presented with these contrasting images, they became overwhelmed by emotion. This film
shows the common theme that people tend to point out their own flaws and barely ever mention
their good features. The participants shared a similar reaction to the sketches; they realized their
critical self-perception is an inaccurate representation of what they actually look like and who
they actually are. Not only did they recognize the self-criticism, but they also acknowledged the
fact that they didnt want to feel that way.
Doves Real Beauty advertisement openly appealed to ones emotions; however, the
underlying message was meant to promote honest self-reflection and thought, and therefore
connecting to the audience through logos. Its natural for young children, girls in particular, to
think that their mothers are beautiful, loving and strong. Regardless of the truth-value in that
claim, society has created an ideal for a woman that is so lofty that children are rarely exposed to
their mother feeling beautiful and confident. The unintended byproduct of a mothers critical
self-perception, despite being beautiful in the eyes of their child, is the creation of an
environment where children grow up to be self-deprecating and critical.
In the past few years, companies have started to support a positive self-image movement
to encourage women to acknowledge and recognize that beauty comes in every shape and size.

Aerie, which is a branch of American Eagle, is currently running a campaign where their models
arent retouched by Photoshop or any beauty enhancing device. The context of Aeries campaign
bolsters the credibility of the Dove Real Beauty campaign and vice-versa. When several
companies support the same social self-confidence beauty movement, more credibility is
attributed to it, making it more believable. Thus, it ultimately helps with connecting to the public
through ethos.
As consumers, we vote with our money. In other words, consumers want to spend their
money on a company with a good reputation that focuses on caring about and giving back to
consumers, instead of giving money to a company that has a reputation for elitism and profit
margins. Proof of this was the publics reaction to the comment made by former CEO of
Abercrombie and Fitch Mike Jefferies about the companies clothing only being meant for cool,
thin and attractive people. Rightly so, this comment offended many people and, in response,
some customers stopped purchasing from this company. Abercrombie and Fitch stock plummeted
12% after Mike Jefferies comment. After all, what consumer would want to give his or her
money to a company that focuses and promotes the superficial definition of cool and attractive?
Companies like Dove are aware that consumers want to believe the appeals to ethos, logos and
pathos and in turn, those customers will likely make their purchases from companies who make
these positive feelings.
By portraying the image that natural beauty is within all of us and that all we need to do
is to honestly reflect on ourselves to see it in Dove Real Beauty Sketches, Dove connected with
every viewer. The feedback since airing this short film has been extremely positive; it went viral
on Facebook and was promoted on Youtube. Unlike the majority of commercials and even reality
television, this video was clearly unscripted. It is the natural unfolding of the realization that

each one of us is truly beautiful and no product is necessary for us to realize that. It is our job to
comprehend and to acknowledge our own beauty instead of comparing it to standards that are
unobtainable. It is obvious from the video how genuine the people are and that it is not just an
attempt to manipulate womens emotions. While other companies are selling their products under
the notion that consumers need to buy their products in order to fix their problems, Dove asserts
that the true problem is that we, as humans, focus too much on trying to fix ourselves and less
on accepting that who we already are is perfect.

Works Cited
Krupnick, Ellie. "Aerie's Unretouched Ads 'Challenge Supermodel Standards' For Young
Women." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Jan. 2014. Web.
Lutz, Ashley. "Abercrombie & Fitch Refuses To Make Clothes For Large Women." Business
Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 03 May 2013. Web.
"Dove Real Beauty Sketches." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Aug. 2014. Web. 14 Sept.
2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_Real_Beauty_Sketches
"Real Beauty Sketches - Dove." Real Beauty Sketches - Dove. Dove, n.d. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.
http://realbeautysketches.dove.us/