Holding a mirror up to marketing
The Dove campaign addressed a common concern that crossed cultural boundaries. Confronted by standard visual stereotypes of beauty in the global media, many young women develop self-image and self-esteem problems. The Dove Real Beauty campaign rejected these narrow stereotypes in favor of celebrating the diversity of beauty, supplementing functional benefit claims with an important emotional appeal that was inclusive rather than elitist. Inclusiveness is one of six key benefits that good marketing delivers to consumers, the others being information, choice, engagement, exchange and consumption. Here we show how political democracies aim to deliver these same six benefits to citizens. Marketing campaigns that focus on delivering all six "democratic" benefits, such as the Dove campaign, achieve a higher standard and more substantial, sustainable results.
