I "couldn't help myself." I went back to The Gruen Transfer site (see
yesterday's post) and did some more looking.
Perhaps you've seen one or more of the Unilever/Dove commercials--"Evolution" and "Onslaught." The Gruen Transfer gives some
background and insightful commentary on the two commercials as well as access to full clips. (Scroll about halfway down the page to view "Evolution." "Onslaught" comes just beyond.)
My sense, Unilever/Dove presented some really worthwhile cautionary messages in both ads. "Parents: your children--daughters, especially--are having their views of the world and, most especially and sadly, themselves, twisted . . . by the advertising they see."
Of course, these warnings are all about the very advertising that Unilever/Dove is most involved in. And so the parody backlash they experienced was probably well deserved.
Once more, The Gruen Transfer provides some thoughtful commentary and two such parodies: a direct remake, if you will, of "Onslaught" in which
Rye Clifton, a 27-year old "senior strategic planner," replaces all the beauty images in the original ad with actual footage from ads by Unilever products . . . and then alters the final message. Instead of concluding, as Unilever/Dove does, with the message, "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does," Clifton says, "Talk to your daughter before Unilever does."
Why this latter message? As The Gruen Transfer notes, Unilever/Dove is the world's second largest advertiser--right behind Procter & Gamble. And what does it advertise? Among others, beauty products like
Slim-Fast diet drinks,
Fair & Lovely skin whitener (huge demand in Asia),
Axe deodorant, and, of course, the entire line of
Dove beauty products.
And then, at the bottom of the
The Gruen Transfer Ad Critiques page, there is an absolutely hilarious "Evolution" Parody: "Slob Evolution." . . . Should it have been titled "Devolution," instead? --A strange and perfect contrast to Unilever/Dove's original--all the way down to the multi-layered messages in the final screens.
Unilever/Dove concluded its original "Evolution" with "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted. Take part in the Dove Real Beauty Workshops for Girls. the
dove self esteem fund." "Slob Evolution" concludes, "Thank God our perception of real life is distorted. No one wants to look at ugly people. www.CampaignAgainstRealLife.com."
