Dove asked an FBI-trained forensic artist to draw women he could not see. Each woman described her own face from behind a curtain. A stranger who had met her then described her too. When the two sketches were hung side by side, the stranger’s version was almost always the kinder one.
The Artist Who Never Looked
The artist was Gil Zamora, who had drawn more than 3,000 criminal suspects from witness descriptions. Dove chose him after extensive research.
The women were invited to a loft in San Francisco without being told why. Each sat behind a curtain and answered Zamora’s questions about her hair, her jaw, her chin and the features she noticed most. Zamora drew only what he heard.
Two Portraits of the Same Woman
The next day, a stranger who had spent time with each woman at the loft described her to Zamora, and he drew a second portrait.
Then the women were shown both sketches together. Their own descriptions had produced faces that looked tired, heavier and older. The strangers’ descriptions produced faces that looked open and warm. The film closes on the women’s reactions and the line “You are more beautiful than you think.”
The Number Behind the Idea
The campaign was built on a statistic from Dove’s research, that only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. The sketches turned that number into something people could see in a single frame.
Anselmo Ramos, the creative director who led the project, admitted the idea “could go totally wrong.” The team wanted to “do something really emotional,” he said.
How Far It Travelled
The films launched on April 14, 2013, in a 6-minute version and a 3-minute cut. Within 2 weeks, the short version had 30.6 million views on YouTube. By June, the films had reached 163 million views worldwide, with 4.6 billion media impressions. More than 15 parody videos followed, including a male version that passed a million views in under a week.
The Daily Telegraph called it Dove’s “most thought-provoking film yet.”
The Criticism It Drew
The campaign also faced pushback. Writing in Forbes, Avi Dan argued that it still made women’s worth about appearance, and noted that the women shown were mostly young, thin and white. Bloomberg’s Virginia Postrel questioned the method, pointing out that editors picked 7 women from around 20 who were filmed.
Others defended it. Will Burns, also in Forbes, said 3 of the 7 women featured were from minority backgrounds, and argued the message ran against Dove’s own commercial interest in selling beauty products.
What the Juries Decided
Real Beauty Sketches won the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes Lions in 2013, one of the festival’s highest honours. It also topped the Cannes YouTube Ads leaderboard.
The film was created by Ogilvy Brazil, produced by Paranoid and directed by John X Carey.
Most beauty ads show women what they should look like. This one showed them what they already looked like to everyone else.
Campaign Name: Real Beauty Sketches
Agency Name: Ogilvy Brazil (production by Paranoid, directed by John X Carey)
Brand Name: Dove (Unilever)
Location: Filmed in San Francisco, released globally (April 2013)
