Are You Average or Beautiful?

dove-choose-beautiful-hed-2015I’m a sucker for Dove’s ad campaigns. They’re typically geared towards women, but they ask interesting questions about the way people view themselves and how our perception is tied to our self worth.

The latest Dove ad, which you can watch here, features signs above regular entrances to malls, stores, airports, etc. There’s always one sign that reads “beautiful” and one sign that reads “average.”

The video shows women (no men, oddly enough–don’t men use these same entrances?) approaching the entrances and almost always choosing the “average” option.

As I was watching the video, I was a little torn at first. As this article keenly points out, many women who view themselves as beautiful may have chosen the average door just because they don’t want to appear immodest. Similarly, beauty doesn’t equate to self-worth. They’re connected, but it’s not necessarily a reflection of how a woman values herself if she chooses the average door.

That said, as I mentioned, I’m a sucker for these videos, and there’s a certain moment that really got to me. It’s at the 1:52 point in the video when a woman says this:

Every day I go through the average door. But yesterday was a unique day. So I chose to go through the beautiful one.

This struck me as really powerful. No matter how people treat us, how society says we should look, or even the reflection we see in the mirror, we have the choice to feel beautiful. Maybe not every day, and maybe “beauty” means different things to us on different days, but we always have that choice. I think that’s awesome.

Right after that clip, the video shows a mother walking with her daughter, and the daughter is about to walk through the average door before her mother tugs her over to the beautiful door. It’s another great moment, as it’s a reminder that we have the choice to help others feel beautiful too.

I think there are a lot of different ways to perceive this video, so I’m curious about your opinion. Did you like the message? How did it speak to you?

4 thoughts on “Are You Average or Beautiful?”

  1. I have way mixed feelings about it, and in the end, don’t like it. I reject the entire judgment thing from the beauty industry. They created the soap, shampoo, makeup, deodorant, razor, and other huge business lines by convincing women (mostly) that we were ugly, smelly, and otherwise deficient. So I reject all those things as a product class. I use handmade goat’s milk soap, no shampoo or conditioner (really, you don’t need it until you ruin your hair by using it), no deodorant (if you smell, wash), no razor (it’s Seattle and I don’t care LOL but seriously, in summer, I get waxed if I feel like it). If you really want to feel better about yourself (and you’re a woman), watch Mythbusters. The “throw like a girl” and “multitasking” myths come right to mind, and those segments were outstanding. The Always series of “like a girl” ads are amazing. ALL girls and women should watch THAT, not Dove’s “question yourself and your ambivalence” nonsense. Watch some of them yourself, and contrast those ads with Dove’s ads; see if you don’t have a different emotional reaction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

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