Faced with the option of choosing between being “average” or “beautiful,” a large percentage of women were found to view themselves as average, according to a Dove survey.
The brand’s latest campaign, “Choose Beautiful,” was shot in five cities across five countries and carries the premise that feeling beautiful is a personal choice that women should feel empowered to make every day.
Using hidden cameras and side-by-side doors — one marked “Average” and the other “Beautiful” — Dove challenged approaching women to face how they view themselves and observed their reactions to the signs and which door they eventually went through.
Interestingly, most women ultimately chose to walk through the door that had “Average” written above it, as opposed to the one was marked “Beautiful.”
In the end, though, several of them regretted it.
“I regretted my choice because it was different to what I live for and what I live,” a Brazilian woman who’d chosen “Average” later admitted to Dove.
Another woman who went through the “Average” door stated that the reason she walked through that door was because “beautiful to me… it’s too far out of reach.”
One woman, however, shared that she felt a boost of empowerment as she walked through the “Beautiful” door.
“It was quite a triumphant feeling… like telling the world I think I’m beautiful.”
According to the Huffington Post , Dove’s campaign also involved interviewing 6,400 women from 20 countries around the world between the ages of 18 and 64. They were asked how they perceive beauty in themselves and other women, and it was found that a staggering 96 percent of the surveyed women did not view themselves as being beautiful.
On the other hand, though, most women recognized aspects of beauty in other women, with 80 percent stating that every woman has something beautiful about her.
Of course, it’s not an easy task for most women to automatically start viewing herself as beautiful, but Dove’s encouragement of a woman mindfully increasing her self-esteem on a daily basis is actually quite doable.
[Image via Dove]
