Marketing Communications

Dove aims at reaching their target women through an innovative approach by using “real” women with “real” shapes and sizes in advertising to represent their company. The Body Milk advertisement depicts women with all shapes and sizes from different generations, ethnicity and stages in life, which illustrate the main elements of Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Within the advertisement Dove focuses on women assumed identical to parts of the target audience, which indicates a light selling approach as no product information is provided and the personal aspects of the brand is therefore emphasised. An analysis of the target audience of the advertisement reveals that Dove has chosen to focus on a broad segment, thereby going against main principles of segmentation concepts. An assessment of the advertisement reveals that Dove goes against the norms within their industry by disagreeing with the ideals presented by the media, hence depicting “real” women. This approach can be affected by the relationship the target women hold towards the media. However, is this an approach that works?