If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, goes a popular saying.
It’s a pretty basic rule that I think most brands should really pay more heed to. But they don’t. Rather, they feel this need to better something that’s going well, or worse, make it deliver a social message. And then it backfires.
If you haven’t guessed already, I am talking about the new Dove campaign, which, hold your breath, is about “celebrating the many shapes and sizes of beauty”. And how do they achieve this noble aim? By releasing “six differently shaped bottles of body wash”. That’s right. It’s a part of its new “Real Beauty” campaign. Read on, it gets better.
The new ad declares that “beauty comes in all shapes and sizes”. The idea being that each shape sort-of correlates with a different body types. Needless to add there are all kinds of shapes shown to us – yup from the hourglass bottle and skinny one to the pear-shaped ones.
Not sure what Dove was thinking. That women are going to now go around buying bottles based on their shapes, by virtue of which they demonstrate to the world that they are proud of their bodies? Well, something like that, maybe. Except, that what sometimes sounds like a great idea in a power point presentation, does not really sound so great when the plan hits the ground!
It’s a classic case of a brand taking itself too seriously – it’s ok Dove – you don’t have to send any feel-good messages – we women are doing quite alright – really, just sell your body wash. When I buy soap I want to know what it’s made of, at best, not what shape it is and the warm and fuzzy message it’s trying to give me.
Yes, they went too far with the whole celebrate-your-body-type thing. Quitting at the top is not something brands get right often. It was a good campaign – but now it reminds me of assorted bottles sitting awkwardly next to each other, trying to tell me something about my body that is totally lost on me.
Twitter was on fire and Dove’s UK Branch got the brunt of it (yup, their bright idea)
So, the question to ask is? Why do brands, time and again, fall for it? For the need to appear sensitive and push social messages down people’s throats through their brands that is?
Maybe someone at Dove can explain.
mommyrage.com 