Dove splashes out on beach body ad

Unilever has exploited the bust-up over the controversial “beach body ready” ad campaign, featuring a sultry bikini-clad model, by launching a parody Dove version as part of its long-running “Campaign for Real Beauty”.
The Advertising Standards Authority has already received 216 complaints about the Protein World campaign, while many of the posters, which appear in London Underground stations, have been defaced.
Meanwhile an online petition on Change.org to remove the ads has now gained more than 58,000 signatures and there is even a protest planned at Hyde Park this weekend.
And Protein World chief executive Arjun Seth has hardly ingratiated himself to critics, describing the people who defaced the posters as “irrational extremists”. He added that an “unhinged individual” had threatened to attack the company’s head office, adding : “I hope the National Security Agency find these terrorists and take them to Guantanamo Bay.”
But the campaign has played right into the hands of Unilever, whose Dove campaign runs under the strapline: “Yes. We are beach body ready.”
Dove first launched the Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004, based on the findings of a major global study, The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report.
The campaign started a global conversation about the need for a wider definition of beauty after the study proved the hypothesis that the definition of beauty had become limiting and unattainable. Among the study’s findings was the statistic that only 2% of women around the world would describe themselves as beautiful.
Since 2004, Dove has employed various communications vehicles to challenge beauty stereotypes and invite women to join a discussion about beauty. In 2010, Dove evolved the campaign and launched an unprecedented effort to make beauty a source of confidence, not anxiety, with the Dove Movement for Self-Esteem. Ogilvy & Mather handles the ad account, with CRM handled by Havas Helia.