Is Dove’s #SpeakBeautiful Twitter Campaign an ‘Egregious Overstep’?
Another Dove campaign positioning the brand as the friend of female self-esteem is being accused of Doing It Wrong. If you missed the Washington Post’s take on Wednesday, which called the new effort an “egregious overstep,” here’s one key bit:
The only purpose of this cooing, of course, is to lull consumers into a sense of intimacy so human, so convincing, that you forget that Dove is actually trying to sell you something; that in fact, Dove only exists on this planet to sell you things, and that Dove’s pursuit of sales occasionally involves behavior you may find offensive and/or unsavory.
Last year Dove took a hit over a campaign that apparently tricked women into believing they were trying medical patches that would make them prettier (all the better to reveal that all they needed was self-esteem). This time the criticism is over Dove tweets sidling up to women who sound down about their bodies to reassure them that they are beautiful.
