Dove has teamed up with Twitter to launch a new campaign for Oscar night, promoting self-esteem as part of its ‘real beauty’ message. According to research conducted by the Unilever brand, criticism about celebrities is at an all-time high during the Oscars and Twitter users are 50% more likely to send self-hating Tweets about their […]
Dove has teamed up with Twitter to launch a new campaign for Oscar night, promoting self-esteem as part of its ‘real beauty’ message.
According to research conducted by the Unilever brand, criticism about celebrities is at an all-time high during the Oscars and Twitter users are 50% more likely to send self-hating Tweets about their own appearance.
Entitled , the campaign will consist of a commercial illustrating the domino-effect of abusive (and self-abusive) comments on Twitter, while ultimately noting that “it only takes one positive Tweet to start a new trend.”
At the same time, on Oscar night, Dove and Twitter will flag Tweets mentioning certain keywords related to appearance and body image and then Tweet positive responses from Dove’s Twitter account, which will be manned by self-esteem experts, according to Mashable.
The whole campaign is based around new research from Dove about self-esteem and social media. Among its findings:
• 8 out of 10 women encounter negative comments on social media that critique women’s looks
• Women are 50% more likely to say something negative about themselves than positive on social media
• 82% of women surveyed feel the beauty standards set by social media are unrealistic
• 4 out of every 5 negative tweets Twitter identified about beauty and body image are women talking about themselves
The brand explains: “When a negative tweet is posted, the technology will be used by Dove to send non-automated responses to real women, which include constructive and accessible advice to encourage more positive online language and habits.
“Advice will come directly from social media and self-esteem experts who collaborate with Dove and Twitter to empower women to speak with more confidence, optimism and kindness about beauty online.”
Though conceptually promising, similar campaigns have backfired. During the recent Super Bowl, Gawker pranked Coke into Tweeting images of lines from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Most crucially, the new Dove Twitter campaign won’t be automated.
Twitter, whose CEO Dick Costollo recently said that the platform is bleeding users because “we suck at dealing with abuse and trolls,” attempted something similar in recent weeks to great success.
