If you've been alive for the past 10 years, you should be familiar with Dove's Real Beauty campaign. This time around, the brand decided to go the extra mile by incorporating its mission statement, to inspiring all generations of beautiful, confident women, into the product packaging. Teaming up with Ogilvy London, Dove created a limited-edition line of Real Beauty Bottles, now available in the U.K.
The whole point was to celebrate body diversity by featuring bottles in a variety of shapes and sizes, but people on the internet thought Dove was trying way too hard. Naturally, users on Twitter began poking fun at the design through the art of memes. Once the trolling escalated into a Moment on the social media platform, it was pretty much game over for this advertisement.
While the brand's intentions were most likely harmless, this specific ad is a disservice to all of Dove's customers. Sure, it seems like a great idea to make curvy, tall, slim, and thin bottles to show that "there is no one perfect shape," but do women really need to be reminded of their figure everywhere they turn? Sometimes a gal just wants to go home, hop in the shower, and wash away all of society's social constructs off.
Furthermore, this is only going to cause more stress on women when they find themselves in the aisle debating which bottle to choose. (The guilt of not picking their "type" could cause a little bit of anxiety and blow up into a full-on identity crisis.) Also, let's be real, this stunt would never be suggested to target men. Not even Shonda Rhimes can clean up this mess.
So much for having a body party. You can do better, Dove. In the meantime, have a laugh at some of our favorite memes from the ordeal, below.
