Model behaviour

Every day women’s lives are affected by the tyranny of perfection; the images reflected back to them of how they should look; how they should conform to the right size, shape, colour and concept of their gender. 

The result being that 70 per cent of women do not feel represented in media and advertising. 

In an effort to redress this tired and lazy stereotyping, in 2019, Dove partnered with Getty, Girlgaze, women and non-binary individuals to create Project #ShowUs, a collection of more than 10,000 images that offer a more inclusive vision of beauty for all media and advertisers to use. 

This year, Dove has collaborated with LOLA MullenLowe Madrid to extend the campaign by infiltrating international casting calls with real beauty models, pledging that if a brand chooses one of their models they will cover the cost of the appearance fee. 

In this touching film directed by Lourens Van Rensburg through 7Films, some of the chosen women reveal the transformative experience of being selected to represent brands that have got involved – including Magnum, Krispy Kreme, Cif and Nedbank.

“This project really drove home how difficult it is to promote real beauty in advertising. Even when offering Dove’s real beauty women to brands at no cost at all. Hopefully this campaign will encourage many more to genuinely do something about this problem," commented Tomas Ostiglia, ECD at LOLA MullenLowe Madrid.