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Dove ad slams Japanese beauty ideals; backfires with complaints from public instead

14 Comments
By SoraNews24

In 2004, personal care brand Dove launched the Dove Self-Esteem Project to empower women to love themselves at any shape, age or size, and it’s since grown to become the largest body-confidence education provider in the world, expanding its reach to over 153 countries, including Japan.

Its latest awareness campaign in Japan, however, hit a snag because although it aimed to denigrate local beauty standards and ideals for the betterment of women, it worked to aggravate a number of locals instead.

According to Dove, the “No more kawaii standards” campaign is “a wake-up call against ideals of beauty that can have a negative impact on children“, with its purpose being to foster a greater sense of self-confidence in young people by encouraging them to disagree with these ideals. The brand is going above and beyond in spreading the message, with a series of ads being posted in one of Tokyo’s busiest locations — on the stairs at the Tokyu Denentoshi Line platform at Shibuya Station.

▼ Dove Japan shared this image of the ads at Shibuya Station on its official Twitter account.

Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-10.26.02.png

The tweet includes a call to action, with a message that reads:

“Ads have now been put up at Shibuya Station! What they highlight is the unnecessary beauty standards that are being spread on social media. Remarks like these are the root cause that cause every girl to lose her sense of attractiveness and self-confidence. Please repost this tweet with the hashtag #カワイイに正解なんてない ! Let’s use our voices to say NO to beauty standards!”

On the surface, this all seems like a positive message of empowerment — “カワイイに正解なんてない” translates as “There’s no right answer to what’s cute” — but what’s got locals up in arms are the phrases printed on the ads, which are also included in the commercial posted on YouTube.

▼ The tie-in commercial for the campaign.

What these messages contain are the actual beauty standards that Dove says young women should stand up against. However, by specifically naming these beauty ideals, the campaign works to draw attention to them, and many people are saying they wouldn’t have known of these standards had it not been for the campaign.

Looking at each phrase in detail, they read as follows:

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Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-10.32.39.png

Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-10.33.30.png

Screenshot-2024-10-10-at-10.35.09.png

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Well, if you weren’t feeling self-conscious about your appearance before, you likely are now after reading through all those beauty standards. It’s an unusual list that many adults in Japan were surprised to learn about, spurring comments like:

“Putting out ads like this only serves to spread these beauty standards around the world.”

“Who thinks this will boost their self-esteem? If I saw such full-on statements printed in big characters while commuting to school, I’d be so depressed.”

“This will have the opposite effect of fostering self-confidence in young women.”

“Please stop these ads. They only encourage lookism.”

“Don’t they realise that by making ideal values ​​visible, it pushes people suffering from lookism even further into a corner?”

“If I hadn’t seen this, I wouldn’t have known that a mid-face size of 6.5 centimeters is ideal.”

In Dove’s defense, every poster includes the hashtag “There’s no right answer to what’s cute” and crosses out the beauty standard above it to encourage people to buck the trends. And while many adults may not be aware of these ridiculous-sounding beauty standards, it’s likely that many young women in junior high and high schools, the target market for this campaign, are very aware of these standards, which are prevalent on social media.

Still, in bringing these ideals to light, it does serve to spread awareness about them, and the public backlash against the campaign indicates that a more sensitive approach may have been more effective. Perhaps by alluding to beauty ideals without adding the numerical values by which they’re gauged, or giving them less credence with a smaller font, Dove could’ve helped the message land better with the public and draw attention to its potential to effect change rather than become the news story itself.

Sources: Unilever, Dove Japan, Twitter/@Dove_JP via Jin, Otakomu

Insert images: Dove Japan

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

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-- Big eyes, small face, slender arms and legs…here’s the ideal woman you’ve been praying for!

-- Japanese burger chain makes jaws drop with the Miso Ebi Fry

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

14 Comments
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People try to look good for many reasons, but yes, impressing the same sex is part of it. You cannot blame the opposite sex for all of it.

These many reasons include "to increase self-confidence". This is usually by approaching some accepted beauty standard. Millions of men worldwide use anabolic steriods to bulk up, so its not just women. In this campaign, Dove (essentially a soap, not a beauty brand) is actually trying to empower people with a "don't let beauty standards destroy your confidence" message, but its been done in a hamfisted way that highlights the standards and not the "be yourself" message.

Our eldest goes to a tech college as one of the few girls there, but has fallen out with her mates after she called one of them out for working in a hostess bar to pay for plastic surgery. This is nineteen year old women who can do science. Pretty much every photo is Photoshopped now and stars like the K-pop ones have had procedures galore. This must do young people's heads in.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

@banthu You don't think women try to look good so they can feel god about themselves?

9 ( +14 / -5 )

Ads should never be too subtle in Japan or they will be easily misunderstood. Ideally they should just appeal to simplistic sentiments and impressions and inanely repeat the name of the company in a cutesy voice. Often they must include somebody doing a silly dance (or gesture), ideally someone like an old lady or cop who you would not expect to dance. More sophisticated ones might have someone looking into space as if in wonder about the product. An hour watching them and I would gladly tell my captors anything.

-1 ( +9 / -10 )

Dove are getting the attention they wanted. Will this lead to a positive or negative effect on sales in Japan? Only time will tell.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

If you have a daughter then you're probably on board with pushing back against lookism. Everyone wants to look good, which is fine, but social media has really warped young people. At least Dove is trying.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

Dove are getting the attention they wanted. Will this lead to a positive or negative effect on sales in Japan? Only time will tell.

More important is of course the effect on the mental health of young women in Japan.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

Social awareness campaigns always backfire in Japan. No offense but the people here only have the shallowest of thoughts about things like this before pointing a finger somehow that it’s a problem to address issues to make their lives better. Hence why this place is stuck with groups like the LDP constantly robbing them blind.

-2 ( +9 / -11 )

You don't think women try to look good so they can feel god about themselves?

But they pay much more attention on their looks when they go out. If they were primarily doing it for themselves, they would also do it when staying at home alone.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

Virusrex

Doubt they are actually so feeble minded and weak to be upset by this. If they are then it’s time to get some specialist help.

-7 ( +2 / -9 )

They missed the 3 major ones!

Double eyelids!

High nose!

White skin!

There was a make-up brand that had an ad above their products that said-'Anyone can look like a hafu (by using this make up!) My husband made a complaint to the shop selling it and to the manufacturers!

6 ( +8 / -2 )

The place where people never complain but are always complaining.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

But they pay much more attention on their looks when they go out. If they were primarily doing it for themselves, they would also do it when staying at home alone.

That can still be something done primarily for themselves, you are confusing between looking good to their own eyes and looking good in general so they feel better about it.

Doubt they are actually so feeble minded and weak to be upset by this. If they are then it’s time to get some specialist help.

What are you talking about? the campaign was done to improve the situation, nobody has to be feeble minded or weak for it to have at least some effect, hopefully positive as that is the whole intention of doing this.

It is natural to give more importance to the effect of the campaign on the target than on the company that produced it.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Most people, everywhere, particularly young people worry about how they look and some get obsessed by it.

Generally, the rules against wearing cosmetics in high schools in Japan, as uncomfortable that period of life is, forces girls to not try to hide their faces behind a layer of make-up and for most they learn to accept how they look at an early age, develop self-confidence and move on.

Look around, you will find a lot of woman in Japan who use no cosmetics or only a minimal amount.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

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