Given the option
between “Average” and “Beautiful” which description would you choose for
yourself?
According to a new
worldwide survey conducted by Dove, it revealed that a whooping 96% of women consider
themselves to be average, leaving only 4% who believe that they are beautiful.
For their new
Choose Beautiful campaign, Dove decided to illustrate the survey results with a
video. Across five cities - Shanghai, San Francisco, London, Sao Paulo and
Delhi, women were filmed in local shopping areas as they walked up to one of
two doors marked with a sign that read “Average” or “Beautiful”. The camera
followed the women to see which door they would choose to walk through and then
to find out their thought process behind going through their chosen door.
Lets pause here
for a moment as I put out a little disclaimer. I am well aware of the
controversy behind Unilever and Dove in regards to some of the other products
and brands they produce that is in complete contradiction to their message of
“building women’s self esteem” and I am not in any way trying to promote Dove.
What I want to
focus on is the video itself and the thought process of the women on what
“average” and “beautiful” means, as I think it’s a belief that many of us also
share.
Watching the video,
it was incredible to see how many of the women choose to walk through the
average door. It was also interesting to hear them reveal what made them choose
that door. Some of the responses included:
1)
‘Am I choosing because of what's constantly bombarded at me and what I'm being told that I
should accept? "Or, am
I choosing because that's what I really believe?’
2) 'It was confronting to see these signs, and to have to choose, and be self conscious of how you
perceive yourself and if it lines up with how the rest of the world perceives you.'
3) 'I regretted my choice because it was different to what I live for and what I live'
4) 'I had rated myself as average and
nobody else.'
5) 'Beautiful, to me, is too far out of
reach.'
Here is the video
