This week, we distill insights around Dove Real Beauty Sketches - a short film which promotes the idea that women are too critical of their own appearances and they are actually more beautiful than they think. For more about Dove Real Beauty Sketches, visit: http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/peoplesinsights/dove-real-beauty-sketches-peoples-insights-volume-2-issue-28 100+ thinkers and planners within MSLGROUP share and discuss inspiring projects on reputation, employee engagement and citizenship on the MSLGROUP Insights Network. Every week, we pick up one project and do a deep dive into conversations around it -- on the MSLGROUP Insights Network itself but also on the broader social web -- to distill insights and foresights. We share these insights with you on our People’s Insights blog and compile the best insights from the network and the blog in the People’s Insights Quarterly Magazine, as a showcase of our capabilities. We have further synthesized the insights to provide foresights for business leaders and changemakers — in the ten-part People’s Insights annual report titled Now & Next: Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engagement, now available as a Kindle eBook. For more, see: http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/future-of-engagement

1. Reputation | Employee Engagement | Citizenship
Dove Real
Beauty
Sketches
People’s Insights: Volume 2, Issue 28

2. What is Dove Real Beauty Sketches?
A part of Dove’s
ongoing Real Beauty
campaign, Real Beauty
Sketches is a short film
which shows that
women are too critical
of their own
appearances and are
actually more beautiful
than they think.
Source: youtube.com

3. About the film
An artist sketches two
portraits of the women
involved, one based on
a woman’s description
of herself, and the
other based on the
description of a
random stranger.
The two portraits are
then compared, and
the second one is
found to be more
attractive.
Source: realbeautysketches.dove.com

4. The most ‘viral’ ad ever
The video was
released on April 14,
2013 and by April 21,
had more than 15
million views.
According to video
analytics firm Unruly,
the video was shared
by 3.17 million people
within two weeks.
Source: mashable.com

5. #WeAreBeautiful
Dove promoted the
video on Twitter with
the hashtag
#WeAreBeautiful,
which contributed to
the film’s virality.
Source: twitter.com/dove

6. Power of Good Content
I think what made this campaign perform
particularly strongly is the content,
which elicited the intense emotional
responses of ‘warmth, ‘happiness’ and
‘knowledge’ from its target demographic —
one of the key factors behind a video’s
sharing success… Brands have to give
people a reason to share the video.
David Waterhouse
Global Head of Content and PR, Unruly
With an increase in
video consumption
among people and the
proliferation of multiple
screens, original
creative and
compelling video
content for the digital
medium is the need of
the hour to engage
with the consumers.

7. Consistent Message
Consistency has been
the key to Dove’s
success over the
years. The original
campaign Dove Real
Beauty was launched
in 2004 and has stayed
true to its message
since.

8. Commitment to Beauty
To go the extra mile,
Dove launched the
Dove Self Esteem
Fund (DSEF) , an
initiative to build self
esteem and confidence
among young girls.
The initiative has
received positive
feedback, especially
from parents.
Source: facebook.com/pages/Dove-Real-Beauty-Sketches

9. Fueling debate around ‘real beauty’
Looking at the two portraits of herself, one
woman described the one meant to be prettier
as looking 'much younger,' which seemed to be
true of all of them. The more 'beautiful' facial
representations seemed to all be thinner and
younger-looking. If that is the crux of beauty,
then I guess we're all pretty screwed by that
obnoxiously inexorable bastard called time.
Kate Fridkis
Blogger, Freelance Writer, Columnist
Bloggers have
responded to the
campaign with mixed
reactions. Some
connected Dove to its
sister brands Axe, Fair
& Lovely & found the
message hypocritical;
some debated the
relationship between
beauty and women,
and some questioned
the meaning and worth
of beauty itself.

10. Dove’s social mission
From day one, Dove has instigated people to
challenge the idea of ‘real beauty.’ This
campaign is no different. People’s reactions
show that the campaign did indeed make them
stop and re-think their own beauty. Some of the
critics are re-thinking the concept of beauty
itself. This is ultimately is what Dove intended
with Real Beauty Sketches and Real Beauty.
Nidhi Makhija
Sr. Manager - Insights at MSLGROUP
Some thinkers point
out that by fuelling the
conversation around
beauty, Dove is
succeeding in its
mission of inspiring
people to re-define
beauty, and further
bonding itself to the
concept of beauty.

11. Read People’s Lab insights & foresights
The People’s Lab team shares the insights and foresights from the
MSLGROUP Insights Network on the People’s Insights weekly blog , quarterly
magazine and annual report.
MSLGROUP
INSIGHTS NETWORK
100+ MSLGROUP planners
share and discuss inspiring
projects on reputation,
employee engagement and
citizenship.
PEOPLE’S INSIGHTS
WEEKLY BLOG
PEOPLE’S INSIGHTS
QUARTERLY MAGAZINE
We deep dive into
conversations around one
project to distill insights and
foresights.
Every quarter, we compile the
best insights from the network
and the blog into a magazine,
as a showcase of our
capabilities.
For more, visit http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/peoplesinsights

12. People’s Lab: Crowdsourcing Insights &
Innovation
People’s Lab is MSLGROUP’s proprietary crowdsourcing platform and
approach that helps organizations tap into people’s insight for innovation,
storytelling and change.
For more, visit http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/peoplesinsights

13. For People’s Lab solutions,
please contact:
pascal.beucler@mslgroup.com