The Fight For Beauty

In the past few decades, advertising has been sticking to the notion that skinny is beautiful.  Everywhere from billboards, television ads, to the back of taxi cabs are covered with pictures of these beautiful models.  The TIMES stated, "A person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today" (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/business/media/15everywhere.html).  When someone sees that many adds daily the repetition will make them think it is correct.   Dove is attempting to change this belief by promoting inner beauty.  The success on Dove's idea to branch off from "Skinny being beautiful" and represent the true beauty of people depends on how well Orbach employs ethos and pathos into their advertisements.

When I am watching a commercial I always find advertisements to be more effective when I can relate to them.  Having a mom washing their child with the soap is more effective then a model doing the same work because it is realistic.  Aunt Jemima syrup is good example of similar advertising where there is a picture of a grandma on the cover.  My grandmother always made me pancakes for breakfast so when I was shopping for syrup I grabbed Aunt Jemima after seeing the picture.  Pathos is also being used in Dove's new advertisements when they are attempting to manipulate your feelings.  Having the slogan "Campaigning for real beauty" hints that a model's beauty is fake.  This is going the give the people a new understanding of beauty helping them accept themselves as they are.  For so many years ads were covered with glamor girls but with Dove's innovative thinking, the advertising business could be changing.