Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Fighting the onslaught with a positive message


Looking at the video above I'm somewhat relieved that I don't have daughters. The pressure that young girls are under from the media and beauty industry is overwhelming. It wasn't nearly as tough to be attractive when I was young. We just let our hair grow down to our waists, wore little makeup, shapeless hippie dresses and Birkenstocks or Earth shoes - and we felt beautiful. I'm not saying girls didn't have self-esteem issues back then (many did) but our role models were not impossible to emulate, video-enhanced underweight models. I watched Cleopatra on tv last night (I know the movie sucks) and Liz Taylor, widely considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world at that time, would now be considered hopelessly overweight. By whose standards? An out of control beauty industry's, that's whose. An industry that thrives on making girls and women hyper-aware of their imperfections.
I've posted about Dove's proactive advertising campaigns before. Their newest campaign is aimed at girls aged 11-16 years old and I like it:
The Reality Diaries Program is a 6 week program that revolves around the lives of four real girls who share their personal self-esteem stories online. They record their journey online through the use of blogs and videos, allowing girls across the country to go behind-the-scenes on their real lives and understand the factors that impact their self-esteem. Each girl deals with a different self-esteem issue and the Diaries will reflect how the media influences their self-esteem.
The program has loads of interactive stuff that will appeal to younger girls and hopefully get them talking about it with their friends.

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