Social Lubricant: How a Marketing Campaign Became the Catalyst for a Societal Debate

For this week’s blog I chose to read the article Social Lubricant: How a Marketing Campaign Became the Catalyst for a Societal Debate by Rob Walker on page 265. This article is about how in the new Dove commercials they are using “real” women rather than extremely skinny, unrealistic fashion models.  In this article the debate about the models for Dove is over whether these images of the Dove girls are positive because they are more “real” unlike the fashion model types that are all over magazines or negative because the Dove girls are practically naked and trying to sell a product.  Walker then goes on about Dove’s marketing ideas and how the marketing director of Dove, Philippe Harousseau, says the campaign has been in the works for a couple of years.  Also, in this article it says that women even agree that “the media and advertising” were pushing “unrealistic” beauty standards.  I personally think that using “real” women as models for the Dove commercials rather than “unrealistic” fashion models because it shows girls that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and you do not have to be extremely skinny to be beautiful.