Based on research claiming that by the age of 13, 80 percent of girls distort the way they look online, beauty brand Dove undertook a mission to tackle the issue of unrealistic beauty standards in the digital era by partnering with TikTokers to embrace their own unique beauty.
Objective:
The levels of digital distortion young people see online is harming their self-esteem, and 80 percent of girls are now using retouching apps on images of themselves by the age of 13. Dove launched its "Reverse Selfie" campaign with three key objectives:
Target Audience:
Following an unprecedented year of increased screen-time, which stood to only heighten the pressure young girls felt to achieve unrealistic beauty standards, there had never been a more important time to act. Dove wanted to tackle head-on the toxic beauty standards that girls are having to live up to and stop dangerous retouching apps from undermining the confidence of young people.
Creative Strategy:
Dove aimed to show the damage retouching apps can do to the self-esteem of young people by revealing what girls were doing to manipulate their faces and bodies before posting online. Filters and photo-editing apps were pressuring girls into altering their images to the point at which they were hardly recognizable. It was no longer the beauty industry but social media's perfectly curated selfies that were setting unrealistic beauty standards and damaging girls' self-esteem.
Dove faced a unique challenge in exposing this harmful beauty environment, however, as many teens felt social media had a positive impact on self-image. Dove had to expose the toxicity within selfie-culture but do it in a way that didn't alienate one of the campaign's primary targets — young girls. The brand conducted survey and focus group research to better understand both parents' overall level of understanding of social media and young girls' perspective on how it affects self-image.
Context:
Reverse Selfie was a sequel to "Evolution," an ad Dove released in 2006, which highlighted the false and unrealistic nature of the beauty ideals perpetuated by the advertising industry and the media. Additionally, Dove leads the #NoDigitalDistortion movement to help build confidence and positive body image on social media. The same hashtag was deployed for this campaign.
Overall Campaign Execution:
Dove wanted everything about the execution to be authentic to how girls were retouching their images, but also wanted to create the emotional arc that would surprise and truly hit home with the target audience. To do this, Dove cast young girls who were non-actors and who were using retouching apps and social media daily. The group of girls ranged in ages from nine to 13, which was the demographic most susceptible to the dangers of unrealistic beauty standards on social media. These girls were enlisted to take selfies and use the same retouching techniques they always do.
The original selfies and the retouched selfies appeared together in ads placed in busy shopping plazas and other large, outdoor gathering places. The ads used split portraits and vertical slides, which mirrored the aesthetics of retouching apps, to show selfies that were natural and untouched on one side and heavily manipulated and distorted ones on the other.
Mobile Execution:
Dove partnered with six influencers to initiate a #NoDigitalDistorition hashtag challenge launch. Using the rising single "I'm Not Pretty" by pop star Jessia, the creators displayed their beauty insecurities fanned by social media's beauty standards. The videos ended with the creators rejecting all of the unrealistic beauty standards and instead embracing her own unique beauty.
Reverse Selfie achieved 3.2 billion impressions in its first week of activation. Among those exposed to the campaign, brand affinity increased from 44 percent to 65 percent.
Dove achieved an 11.9 percent increase in cross-category value sales growth, with 11.3 million more units sold. This correlated to a huge sales uplift of $73.3 million, on just a $5.3 million media budget. During launch week, 42,690 toolkits were downloaded by parents having "selfie talks" with children, a more than 4,000 percent increase from the weekly average of 1,040 leading up to the campaign's launch.
The #NoDigitalDistortion hashtag challenge resulted in:
The campaign even became an educational tool in schools. It generated six billion earned impressions globally, and reached 66.3 million individuals on TikTok alone. The campaign had tremendous industry impact and acclaim at a time when the mental health of young people was top of the cultural agenda.
