AI's beauty standard 💄

... and the 3 R's revolutionizing marketing

Author

Verónica Lawson Vilches
April 19, 2024

The newsletter that explores the art of storytelling, effective communication strategies, and the everyday impact we can create 🧚‍♀️

👋 Buongiorno, Bonjour, Hola, Hello

❝

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women

- Maya Angelou

In this edition we will be setting the record straight on…
1. The Code Campaign 🕊️
2. The 3 R’s Redefining Marketing 🩷
3. News 🗞️

The Code Campaign 🕊️

By 2025, Artificial Intelligence is predicted to generate 90% of online content.

That’s what Dove is saying.

It has been two decades since the ‘Real Beauty’ campaign. Now, Dove is showcasing the importance of redefining what beauty looks like as technology progresses.

Dove is rejecting AI distortion of women’s images

Dove is pledging to not use technology to distort images of women in their campaigns. They claim that 1 in 3 women feel pressured to alter their appearance because of what they are seeing online.

This is crucial to women’s mental health.

Representation is more important than ever.

But Dove doesn’t reject AI completely.

AI is here to stay. Instead of turning it’s back to AI, Dove showcases throughout the ad alternative prompts that people can use to promote diversity when it comes to representation of beauty in the digital space.

What are the 3 takeaways we should keep in mind?

  1. Continue challenging the male gaze

    💡 By rejecting AI-manipulated beauty standards, Dove is pushing back against the idea that women’s worth is defined by how attractive they are to the male gaze. It promotes self-worth based on one’s own identity, not external validation.

  2. Owning the narrative

    💡 Dove challenges women to define beauty for themselves. The campaign showcases using different prompts to define what beauty can really mean. It’s giving women agency over their bodies and self-representation.

  3. Businesses can sell focusing on the message and not just the product

    💡 Dove sells beauty products, but this campaign doesn’t focus on how their products will make you beautiful. It flips the script. It centers on women feeling confident and empowered in their own skin. It’s about a feeling.

The 3 R’s Redefining Marketing 🩷

Today, businesses find themselves navigating the corporate world in a time in which scrutiny and missteps are a constant challenge. People are craving empathy – yet brands are failing at serving that. “Radical empathy is more important than any technology, by thinking foremost about human needs, brands have the opportunity to truly innovate,” state Jeff Tan and Brad Alperin of Dentsu International USA. And 63% of consumers want brands to take a stand on social issues, according to Accenture. 

Every move from brands can be easily and wide-spread scrutinized now with social media and within the lens of “cancel culture”. Radical Customer Experience (“RCX”), is setting a new standard for customer-centricity. “Our mission is to empower companies to embrace empathy in their business practices to foster a more compassionate, understanding, and healthy world,” states their website. 

Founded in 2019 amid a personal journey marked by the challenges of Complex PTSD, RCX was built by Kat Kennan, a visionary marketer, who realized that the missing piece in brand marketing was individual life experiences. As a brand marketer with a diverse career spanning various industries and sizes, Kennan recognized the struggle of scaling empathy and vulnerability in the realm of customer experience.

I got to speak with her around her platform and what are the 3 R’s that she’s using to define marketing around.

The 3 R’s

  • Radical Empathy

  • Radical Vulnerability

  • Radical Authentic Investment 

Want to learn more about RCX?

🗞️ News

✊ Actor and creator of Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, Richard Gadd, has revealed that making the show helped him grapple with his trauma after staying silent for so long. Viewers have been left in awe of of his portrayal of abuse, sexual violence and the ways male victims of harassment can be overlooked.

💸 Transport for Wales reveals that having more female train drivers in 2022 & 2023 has helped narrow the gender pay gap in the rail sector.

🚲 A study by the Institut Paris Région has discovered that Parisians prefer bikes as a means of transportation than cars. Access to the city center by car since when I first moved there in 2014 has changed a lot - not surprised by this news and better for the planet!

The impact of words extend far beyond the page.

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Have a good weekend!

Verónica