advertising and Branding
Murray’s “Branding “Real” Social Change in Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty,” discusses the commercial and social implications of the Dove campaign, and the economic reasons the campaign was prompted by executives. The Dove campaign embraces feminism, but is simultaneously making money moves to “commodity feminism,” wherein advertisers attempt “to reincorporate the cultural power of feminism” (Goldman 1992, p. 130) and, in so doing, depoliticize the feminist message”(Murray). Advertisements targeted for women pull from the feminist movement to sell their product. In Dove soap campaign, they used visual images to connote that ‘real body’ comes in all body types, showing images of women with different bodies. The “real beauty” campaigns align with the corporate strategy to create a pro-feminist agenda. In Dove’s new commercial, the company celebrates body positivity, and shows the molds and formation of their body shaped bottles. Women’s bodies are replicated to look like soap bottles, for a limited time.
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRiv2lgaX_U
In the class readings from Sarah Banet-Weiser, ““We Are All Workers”: Economic Crisis, Masculinity, and the American Working Class,” the crisis of American corporates finding the working class for economic reasons are explained as a strategy for building hopeful brands. This strategy of Levi’s jeans is to create an American brand that highlights the crisis of American values and visual imagery that has left the culture. For instance, Levi’s used snapshots of rural America, one that has built the countries foundation. The visual imagery accompanied with the text of America poem by Walt Whitman. In the advertisement, we see the working class images of men:“The male worker is thus positioned in these campaigns as (in part) a symbol for a nation under threat,”(Banet-Weiser). Advertisements target the male working class by displaying the lack of masculinity in our culture. In the image below, the advertisement clearly display’s how the company uses American ideology to sell jeans. In the second image, the jeans are worn by young adults, in a rustic area with a beaten car.
Works Cited:
Dara Persis Murray (2013). “Branding “Real” Social Change in Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty” in Feminist Media Studies 13(1), pp. 83-101.
Sarah Banet-Weiser, ““We Are All Workers”: Economic Crisis, Masculinity, and the American Working Class” in Gendering the Recession: Media and Culture in the Age of Austerity (pp. 81-106).