A Campaign for Real Honesty

My new blog neighbour No Such Nonsense has posted an interesting piece on Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. The campaign's message is women are beautiful, no matter what shape or size, and I think it's a good message. But the flipside of the coin is that Dove's owners are Unilever, who also own and market Axe body spray. If you watch Axe's ads, which have cracked me up on occasion, the message from Axe is the "you use Axe, you'll get laid". And the "layees" are the typical unattainable type of woman that adorn most issues of Maxim and FHM, "objects in every sense".

Axe's advertising bounces between one's like The Gamekillers, a campaign designed around breaking down the "cock blocker" stereotypes, and the Show Them The Way ads which apply the "use it and you get laid" message. Dove's message is a nobler sentiment which has genuine positive societal value as the Campaign for Real Beauty fights the body-image issues that everyone, particularly women, are all faced with in our media obsessed culture.

The danger lies in the possibility if that if it becomes widely know that Dove and Axe have the same corporate owners, the negative impact will take away from the enlightened message of Dove. Unilever may have to be responsible to bring all it's marketing in line of they want Dove's message to connect with as many people as possible. If the ownership becomes an issue, then Unilever will backpedal to bring its marketing in line.

I'll still buy both Dove and Axe. I just won't carry Axe's message past the checkout line

If you have two different markets, don't you apply two different techniques to get those demographics to buy your product? Read up at No Such Nonsense: The Campaign for Real Honesty and let me know what you think.