Title: Onslaught Year Released: 2007 Type: Advertisement
It is hard to imagine whoever is reading this has not seen the short film "Evolution" from the Dove Beauty Campaign. When the video was posted here (on rednow) in July, we mentioned at least 3 million views via YouTube. Now.... that number is estimated somewhere between 15 and 20 million. This same campaign released their latest ad/short film this week with the title "Onslaught" - which will make perfect sense the moment you hit play.
If you ever check out the blog section on this site and happened to catch Eric's "Brands of More" post, you'll recall an intriguing discussion on the "more" concept. Eric makes mention that a desire for "more" can mean one of two things: increasing something that one already has or obtaining something that one does not have. Both are the foundation of consumerism and without the concept, advertising would not exist.
As this could easily become an "all-media-is-evil" conversation, I must contend that "more" is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact and although some might argue - I tend to believe "more-ism" is an inevitable reality of humanity. We cannot escape our pursuit of it. The question that eventually surfaces is... "more" of what? More time? More money? More technology? (my confession here) More God? More significance? More "beauty"?
The latter is where the Dove Self-Esteem Fund has chosen to spend "more" of their time and money. And because "more beauty" is rather evasive, Dove has entered the "What is beauty?" conversation instead. In fact, they are now asking What is "real" beauty? - which definitely opens a whole new set of questions. Either way, "advertising" and "labeling" seem to be part of the game. And, well.... Dove seems to nail one thing: "Here it comes". Enjoy.
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The song used in "Onslaught" is Simian's "La Breeze". The Dove Self-Esteem Fund has set a goal to reach 5 million girls globally with programs by 2010. For more information on the Dove Self-Esteem Fund, visit www.campaignforrealbeauty.com .
i think its fascinating how the ad progresses from relatively "normal" images of the body in media to quite disturbing portrails of how to acheive that beauty. It grasps and parrallels the phychological progression of sexuality well; we move almost imperceptibly from normal to extreme (while extreme is a relative thing in our culture). How interesting to juxtapose this to a child.
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