It’s been more than a decade now that Dove Real Beauty has been guiding women to see their unique and natural beauty through targeted marketing campaigns that started with billboards and have culminated in video productions. It appears that the brand will not be slowing down its “real women,” “real beauty” messaging anytime soon. The brand has partnered with Shonda Rhimes, acclaimed writer and producer, known for such television works as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal” and “How to Get Away With Murder.”
Rhimes is now serving as the creative director of Dove Real Beauty Productions, which launched in March as a collaborative content studio. The new collaborative studio focuses on real women’s stories, which can be submitted, by anyone, via doverealbeauty.com, for consideration by the Dove Real Beauty Productions team.
Its premiere three-minute film follows Cathleen Meredith, creator of Fat Girls Dance, who realized her own beauty through her love of dance. In the film, Meredith shares how the Fat Girls Dance group came together and the impact it has had on self-image, beyond her own story. The group started with the women challenging themselves to learn, perform and record one dance a week for a year. However, as Meredith watched herself dance in the videos, she began loving and embracing her body. Subsequently, other women began to do the same.
“Dove and I have a shared passion in emphasizing what’s real. The characters that I write about come from the fact that I wanted to see real women on TV—the real and messy stuff that makes us human,” said Rhimes. “In working with Dove and Real Beauty Productions, we get to talk to real women and hear their own beauty stories. The idea that Cathleen defines beauty as self-love is a very mind blowing concept. I don’t think a lot of us, me included, define beauty in terms of self-love. And, to me, that is so empowering.”
According to Dove research, 71 percent of women and 67 percent of girls wish media did a better job of portraying women of diverse physical appearance—age, race, shape and size; so the Unilever brand is committed to giving them just that. And the brand takes pride in its commitment, boasting in the fact that for 60 years, it has remained true to its commitment to only feature real women, to never digitally alter their appearance and to help the next generation develop a positive relationship with their beauty. To date, the brand has reached more than 20 million girls with self-esteem education through its Dove Self-Esteem Project; and is committed to reaching 20 million more by 2020.
“I don’t think we know how much we are told that there is something wrong with our bodies. I think beauty should be fearlessness. I think beauty should be resilience. I think beauty should be creativity,” said Meredith. “I feel so lucky to have worked with a powerful role model like Shonda Rhimes on such an important project – one I hope will inspire every other woman out there to define beauty for themselves.”
[Image courtesy of Dove Real Beauty]