Dove
Dove
Dove is a company which specializes in creating body-care products, such as shampoo, and soap. It is well renowned across the world as one of the best body-care companies there is, thanks to their high quality and affordable products. The target audience for their company is middle-aged to older people, as they are the people who need to take care of their body-care the most. Their advertising suggests they are more willing to target women than men, as on the majority of the adverts, a woman is displayed, and not a man.
Dove's representation of Women in advertising
In Dove's advertisements, women as displayed to be innocent, cheerful and most importantly, hygienic. This is important, as it plays into the stereotype that women are cleaner than men, and more happy. The femininity of the adverts represents that Dove is a women's advert, as at the time, femininity was linked to Women only. In recent years, after data from a poll found that women feel worse about themselves after seeing unrealistic body-care adverts, Dove began a new advertising campaign that challenges the industry stereotypes of beauty, in which more realistic women were represented for who they were, to show that anyone can be beautiful. This included women thin, fat and normal; it was very diverse and inclusive. This made Dove's audience want to buy their product more, increasing the sales and popularity.
The representation of mothers is constructed via the producer through the media language. This involves camera angles, mise-en-scene (setting, positioning and hair, costume and make-up), font, slogans and logos, and shot types.
Representation of Women in other forms of media
For mothers day, two sources of media, both e-commerce, put out advertisements depicting two women and their children, both of which looked happy and 'over the moon'. Both women are also presented as slim, which is not realistic, as the majority of women and mothers do not look like this. Also, most women and mothers are not as happy as they are in the ad, as they have problems of their own. This makes the ads not representative and not realistic of women.
In the fairy liquid advert, women are displayed to follow the stereotype that women work in the kitchen, and care for their family. As a result, this advert is not representative of women; it is not representative of men either, as one was not present (it creates the idea that the man is at work while the women is housekeeping).
In the OXO cube advert, once more, the woman depicted is following the stereotype that women work in the kitchen, and care for their family. The woman is shown to know each interest of her kids, and what they like. This is compounded by the fact that the man is seemingly not attracted to his kids, and instead of talking to them, he looks down at his newspaper. What's more, the man has work clothes on, consolidating the fact the he too is following a stereotype, in which men do not care for the family, and they work instead. As a result, this advert is not realistic either.
Dove's representation of mothers
● Her hair and lack of makeup can portray the fact that she is busy and stressed, and has not had time to put her priorities (her children, and taking care of them) aside.
● The mother is clearly stressed out, and comes across as quite angry and tense.
● She is in the kitchen with her children, which can play into the stereotype that women belong and should work in the kitchen.
● There is no man, husband or father present which can suggest that she is on her own, and has to handle her three kids solo. This makes the mothers stress justified, and we can tell that she is now hard-working and committed.
● It suggests that women are the only caregivers for children.
● The mother comes off as un-controlling and busy (adding to her stress), as her child is messing around, making a mess, something which supposedly he should not be doing.
● The advert itself has little correlation to Dove itself, and could have been made to represent diversity and reality in motherhood.
Intertextuality is the shaping of a texts meaning by another text. It is a 'nod', or allusion, to a similar or related work that is designed to reflect and influence an audiences interpretation of the text.
The hashtag featured on the advert allows the idea of the wider campaign to be felt and shared.
(#beautifullyrealmums)
● The hashtag is modern and forward thinking, it appeals to the digital native and encourages audience interactivity and participation.
● The hashtag invites mothers to participate in the campaign; they can tag it, and use it. This allows them to be empowered, by enabling them to upload images of themselves.
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