Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty … how the Unilever brand has championed with 20 years of purpose-driven advertising … and now taking on the distortions of AI fakes, and the misled aspirations of young women
May 26, 2025
Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty launched in 2004, challenging beauty stereotypes by featuring “real women” of different shapes, sizes, ages, and ethnicities instead of traditional models. Sparked by research showing only 2% of women considered themselves beautiful, the campaign sought to redefine beauty standards and boost self-esteem. Memorable initiatives included the “Evolution” video (2006), exposing the manipulation of beauty through digital editing, and the “Real Beauty Sketches” (2013), highlighting women’s self-perception versus how others saw them. Over two decades, it has evolved into a movement, sparking global dialogue on inclusivity, authenticity, and body confidence.
20 years of real beauty
To mark 20 years of advocating for Real Beauty, Dove launched a campaign addressing a new threat to authentic representation: the influence of AI-generated imagery. Recognizing that standard AI prompts often produce idealised, unrealistic beauty norms, Dove saw an opportunity to shift how beauty is reflected in digital environments.
Their proprietary prompts, grounded in their longstanding Real Beauty philosophy, led to more inclusive visual outputs—proving the brand’s enduring cultural relevance. Supported by a global study that revealed one in three women feel pressured to change their appearance due to online beauty standards, Dove committed to redefining beauty once again—this time within the algorithms that shape our digital world.
To counter the narrow definitions embedded in AI’s outputs, Dove partnered with Pinterest on an initiative that empowered women to define beauty on their own terms. Users were invited to select characteristics that reflected their vision of beauty. In turn, these preferences populated their Pinterest feeds with diverse, authentic imagery.
This custom experience launched with a high-impact homepage takeover and was reinforced by a strategic paid campaign and robust full-channel rollout. The campaign didn’t just challenge AI’s defaults—it transformed them, ensuring Dove’s Real Beauty message re-emerged at the top of the algorithm. The initiative primarily targeted millennial women aged 25 to 54, strengthening their connection with Dove’s Real Beauty values.
The campaign delivered an impressive 787 million impressions and exceeded all key benchmarks. It achieved a 2.9 percentage point increase in brand association and drove engagement levels that were 21.4% higher than Pinterest’s norm for women. Ultimately, the personalized Pinterest feeds became visual proof of Dove’s continued leadership in shaping how beauty is represented—and celebrated—online.
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