Dove Kicks Off "You're Beautiful Story" Event#
Dove: You're beautiful story
Entitled "You're (sic) Beautiful Story", this week the Unilever-owned personal care brand Dove launched an interactive photo exhibition at Shanghai's Ke Center for the Contemporary Arts. Having solicited more than 3 million stories and images from Chinese women via an online mini-site over the past three months, Dove's event is billed as one that celebrates beauty in all its shapes and forms.
Running from June 24-26, the exhibition weaves together the stories sent to the Dove mini-site with interactive video installations, presenting hundreds of personal accounts of beauty. At the opening ceremony, Cai Xiuqing from the television program "China's Got Talent" was joined by model Tong Chenjie and "netizen representatives" to kick off the event.
Unilever personal care VP, Ma Wen said at the opening that the "You're Beautiful Story" campaign is the largest social media activity ever organized by Dove. As Ma added, "From the 'Dove Campaign for Real Beauty' several years ago to 'You're Beautiful Story', we've always believed the definition of beauty should not be limited to a narrow standard, because every woman has her own unique beauty".
With this campaign, Dove is very much focused on the "feel-good" marketing angle, but we're curious to see what kind of reaction the exhibition will elicit from Shanghai locals. Setting aside the awkwardness of the campaign's English-language title, the focus on public self-expression in the "You're Beautiful Story" exhibition -- which includes photo booths that project one's image on a wall -- might be too much for some visitors. Then again, the fact that some 3 million women sent in stories to the mini-site could indicate consumers are becoming less shy and that Dove might be on to something. And if this sort of campaign works for a mass-market company that specializes in household products like soap, it could, feasibly, work for brands further up the value chain. Something to watch.