Sorry, Dove: I'm not buying your brand of female empowerment

It's just opportunism dressed up as feminism

Dove
(Image credit: (Douglas Barnes/AP Images for Dove))

On Wednesday Dove posted its newest campaign, "Patches," to YouTube. The new video is familiar terrain for the company that, for the last 10 years, has continuously built its brand on peddling a nebulous thing to women called "real beauty."

Dove has been incredibly successful branding itself as a beauty company that doesn't believe in beauty. Or, at least, one that doesn't believe in physical beauty. In 2004, Dove launched its much-lauded Campaign for Real Beauty, a media blitz that featured "real" women of different shapes and sizes all proclaiming that they love themselves just as they are. It was a profitable ploy for an advertising campaign designed to sell cellulite-firming cream: Dove saw a sizeable increase in revenue, and the viral ads became YouTube and Facebook favorites.

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Stassa Edwards is a freelance writer from the Deep South.