Unilever And Dove Self Image

In our current society, advertising is approached in different ways when trying to appeal to more of a male or female audience. Companies who use marketing and advertising for the end goal of selling products tend to aim their advertisements to the gender that is most likely to buy the products (Gender Matters). Unilever is a company that sells multiple brands and different types of product; however, two brands that they sell, dove and axe, take opposite approaches when it comes to advertising and this has been seen as a controversial issue with different portrayals of women (Said et al.). Dove has started the campaign that promotes real beauty and the main goal of this campaign is to help women all around the world realize their true beauty

The main issue with Unilever owning both these brands is whether or not Dove’s self esteem campaign was created in order to just sell their products or to genuinely gain support for the cause due to how Axe portrays women in their advertisements (Said et al.). These two major brands being from the same company and having opposite marketing tactics bring to question how honest the brands are. Even though Dove seems to want to generate a revolution with young girls and women around the world dealing with confidence and self esteem issues, they still have the end goal of making a profit from selling products. Knowing that Dove and Axe do come from the same company makes it seem as if the real beauty and self esteem campaign from Dove are all part of a marketing tactic to gain popularity for the brand with their positive message (Said et al.). A few do disagree with how Axe shows women in their advertisements which goes against what Dove’s campaign is trying to promote. The controversy came up when it was pointed out that Unilever owns both of these brands and support both messages being stated. It would be a different situation if Dove and Axe were not supported by the same company considering it does bring up the question of if Dove’s message they are trying to promote is genuine or just a hoax to sell increased amount of products (Said et al.). Dove has an over all message to assist girls and women believe they are beautiful and have confidence along with not letting the media and advertisements having an impact on them; however, Axe produces these type of advertisements that show women as objects to sell sex and their product. Axe’s commercials can be blamed for possibly creating self esteem issues for women, which conflicts with Dove promoting self esteem and can seem as if a marketing strategy to