Sunday, February 11, 2007

Real beauty commodified

I'm still uneasy about the whole notion of real beauty for women being pushed by a beauty products company. Oh sure Dove would tell you that their Real Beauty campaign is intended to raise the self-awareness and acceptance of women everywhere, and to teach girls that the kind of beauty they see in the media is a fantasy. But at the same time, there is a subterfuge here. Dove is hoping that by tying their ads to this notion, it will promote their products in a different way. It is called a market differentiation strategy and lest people forget this, including this otherwise balanced overview in Atlantic Monthly, its still about making money from different notions of female beauty and female bodies. No matter how Dove wants to spin it, they are trying to commodify "real beauty".

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