Monday in Cornerstone Kristina Campos shared a Chrysler advertisement that we unpacked together. She discussed the 2011 Super Bowl commercial and the set of cultural assumptions and implications that would have provided its original context. In her process, she walked through three key steps:

• Check Assumptions – what are the underlying assumptions or biases that the ad communicates?
• Evaluate Evidence – what type of support (stories, authorities, images) does the ad use to persuade us?
• Consider Implications – what does this mean? what was the context for this ad at this time?

In our Cornerstone section this week, students used this process to analyze a series of Dove soap ads that inaugurated the Campaign for Real Beauty to encourage self esteem in young women through parental involvement. After viewing each of the commercials, students selected a chosen ad to watch more carefully and analyze using the same three-step process from the Spotlight.

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* For the 2010 Super Bowl, Dove produced a Manthem Commercial that asks us to look critically at how we define masculine identity as well.

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Media Responses

These commercials sparked broader discussion than just the intended conversations between mothers and daughters. By 2008, the wide availability of media sharing sites like YouTube coupled with social media channels for passing along short clips quickly meant that parodies or critiques of popular commercials could go viral.

Consider the impact of the following responses to the Dove Onslaught ad. Here are just two of the conclusions that we came to together:

1.  Social media has taken the power of media messages beyond traditional advertising. For example, how many views does the Greenpeace ad (see below) currently have on YouTube? Corporations are no longer the only groups creating polished media messages that spark broader cultural conversation. See Greenpeace press release here.

2.  New messages are sometimes made of existing content. One YouTube playlist on the Evolution of the Dove Brand  surveys original 1950s advertising that established Dove soap as a household name alongside mash-ups and remix parodies that challenge Dove’s official marketing messages. From the “soapbox” of YouTube, individuals can call Unilever–Dove’s parent company–to account for a range of messages it produces affecting female body image under different brands like Axe Body Wash. Can amateur videos like these have any impact on the Dove brand overall?

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