Personal care brand Dove aims to help women shirk social media beauty standards in its latest global campaign, starring singer-songwriter Bebe Rexha and content creator Lucy Reeves.
The marketing drive, titled ‘#ShareTheFirst’, aims to “celebrate authenticity” by inviting women to share their “real” first photo.
“The best moments in life aren’t staged or filtered; they just happen. But when you’re in the spotlight, there’s so much pressure to look perfect all the time,” said Rexha in a recent Instagram post.
“That’s why I’m so excited to team up with Dove to celebrate real, unedited beauty, the kind that comes from being unapologetically yourself the first time around and just living in the moment.”
This comes as research from the brand showed nine in 10 women reported taking up to 50 photos before finding one to post. The findings highlighted that more than half of women spend over 10 minutes deciding whether to post, share or delete a picture of themselves.
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“There is a huge pressure to get the perfect photo, thousands of retakes and mass deletes of memories, when the pictures don’t look completely flawless.” said Reeves.
“Scrolling through perfected photos online has affected the way I see myself and my memories and I know I’m not alone. It’s time for us to change the trend of unrealistic perfection. Let’s post those photos, the real authentic ones, because they are enough.”
According to the study, six in 10 women reported not posting any “special moments” because they didn’t like how they looked.
Dove’s research also found that over one in five women shared that they had feelings of increased anxiety before posting on social media.
Marcela Melero, chief growth officer of Dove Personal Care North America and Dove Masterbrand added: “Too many women avoid sharing life’s biggest moments on social media because they don’t like how they look in a photo – from graduations, weddings and birthdays – this pressure to look ‘perfect’ leads to increased levels of anxiety and Dove wants to change that.”
