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Dove and Axe — which send diametrically opposed messages about women to their target audiences — are both made by Unilever. This video juxtaposes the two campaigns in order to raise awareness of the connection between the two. Via The Hathor Legacy.
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7 Responses to “Exposing the hypocrisy of Unilever’s targeted marketing”Leave a ReplyBefore posting a comment, you must read this blog's discussion rules. By posting here, you agree to abide by the rules listed. If you do not, your comment will most likely not be published. Trolling, flaming, and personal attacks will do nothing but get you banned.
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November 6th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
But decision-making at a corporation as large as Unilever is probably done in a highly decentralized way, particularly with respect to marketing. The people who do Axe’s marketing probably never talk to the people who do Dove’s marketing. I mean, Unilever also owns Ben & Jerry’s, if I recall correctly, and that brand continues to be relatively eco-friendly despite the goings-on at Unilever’s other holdings.
I mean, I really don’t like Axe’s marketing at all, and I’m not much a fan of the substance of Dove’s marketing, either(Everybody is beautiful! Which is why you should buy our needless beauty products!), but it strikes me that in a world where more and more commerce is controlled by mega-conglomerates it’ll grow increasingly difficult to find a brand that isn’t owned by an entity that has its fingers in something unsavory somewhere. If you accept that a brand is doing a good job, it seems counter-productive to punish them because another brand over which they have little control is doing a bad job.
November 7th, 2007 at 2:17 am
But that’s exactly the point. We shouldn’t have to settle for less because there’s nothing else. People need to be aware that brands are part of bigger corporations and what happens with their money when they support said brand.
There is no “punishment” going on here. There is much written on the Dove Ads taken by themselves, as well as the Dove Ads taken in the context of them selling a product (which is the issue that you mentioned). What this video is saying, however, is that there also needs to be discussion on the ad campaigns taken in the context of the corporation itself.
The message that’s being sent to Unilever right now is that it can have its cake and eat it too: it can get points (via Dove) for being “woman friendly” and thus draw in the “girl power” crowd and at the exact same time it can get point with the “sex sells” liberal Nice Guys (TM) by exploiting women. What discussions like the video above is trying to generate are about is getting people aware of the issue so that they can stand up and say, “No. You either are for women, or against us. You can’t have it both ways.”
November 14th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
tekanji hits it right on the head - we shouldn’t have to settle for less because there’s nothing else. This is the direction our society is going in so many areas, including media (with News Corp. and a few others buying every media outlet they can get their grubby paws on) as well as consumer goods. Dove is only one brand that is using what I call “activism-friendly marketing” with the “everyone is beautiful” type campaign. What seems to be happening is that corporate consumer-driven capitalism encourages the creation of “green” consumerism, “feminist” consumerism, and “anti-poverty” consumerism (for example the Red campaign). At no point are we encouraged to do what we actually ought to do - reconsider consumerism!
I tend to think we need to work to create alternative structures within the society in whatever ways possible - to take ourselves out of the consumer-driven economy as much as we can. Implementing things like bartering, even gifting and re-gifting, work-trade, and other mechanisms could go a long way towards reducing the power of corporations over our lives, a power that we (at least to some extent) have given them.
BTW the instant preview feature is awesome.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Don’t forget, Unilever is also the company that makes Fair & Lovely skin lightener. I guess they only care about “real beauty” if it passes the brown paper bag test.
November 17th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Ai - it’s as if Altria were selling cigs *and* the Patch both (for all I know, they *are*, too!) Made of Pander, Unilever!
And Zach, unless you are an industry insider, your speculation about advertising campaign decisions ain’t worth zilch. (And if you *are* an industry insider, then you’re Concern Trolling as well as being disingenuous.)
November 17th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Jason, it reminds me of the runup to the last UK elections, where a Tory party leader was talking about how they needed to reinvent themselves as a kindler, gentler Tory Party to get the votes of what he called “the wristband generation” - he was so clueless as to how *bad* it looked to be saying on the Beeb that they needed to work harder at crafting a targeted marketing message to convince the sincere altruistic young people of Gens X-Y-Z to buy their brand, and how absolutely obtuse a strategy this was, even *without* the getting quoted on the BBC website saying it!
March 6th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
[…] We live in a completely toxic environment where our media bombards us with the message: To be a woman is to never be perfect, or even okay, just the way we are. Even the companies that pay lip-service to celebrating women, like Dove, are invested in destroying women’s self esteem to sell products. On top of that, they are often part of larger corporations that are, in essence, murmuring sweet nothings about empowerment in our ears and then turning right around to brag to thei…. […]