Dove's selfie-critical new campaign

In this new campaign, created by Ogilvy, the issue of women and girls’ self-esteem is brought to the top of the agenda as Dove highlights the potential damage caused by the trend for heavily edited selfies.

At the heart of the campaign is a 60-second film called Reverse Selfie, which was directed by Benito Montorio through Independent. The film starts with an image of a girl's head on a social media post which garners the comment "OMG. You look amazing". Harking back to Dove's famous spot from 2006, Evolution [below], which highlighted the unrealistic nature of beauty ideals perpetuated by the advertising industry, the action in Reverse Selfie then rewinds, reversing all the tweaks and staging that have gone into creating that image, revealing the shockingly young girl behind the picture. Viewers are then directed to Dove’s Social Media Confidence Kit on Dove's dedicated website.

“Fifteen years after the launch of our iconic Evolution film addressing image manipulation in advertising, this new film tackles the issue of digital distortion again but this time, through the lens of retouching apps," says Alessandro Manfredi, Executive Vice President at Dove. 

“At the time Evolution was released, the beauty industry was seen as doing the most damage to women’s self-esteem but, since then, the world has evolved and now it’s selfie apps and the pressures of social media that pose the biggest threats," said Daniel Fisher, Global ECD on Unilever at Ogilvy and WPP. "Not enough people are talking about the issue, but hopefully this campaign will change that. As the father of two young daughters myself, I really hope it can make a difference.’

The original photograph in the spot is by Sophie Harris-Taylor, who is known for her natural, candid images.  The star of the film, Grace, was cast partly because she has first-hand experience of the issues the film tackles and, to make it authentic, the photo which features in Reverse Selfie, and the print executions for the campaign, were created with the same retouching app that is used by millions of teenage girls.