Dove's ProAge Campaign:
A Contemporary Discourse of Western Beauty Ideals


In Conclusion: What ProAge is Really Saying

"Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." -Mark Twain

                    The corporate puppet-masters of Dove have marketed ProAge as a fresh line of beauty-care products for "women of a certain age". The term "pro-age" has been constructed as a binary opposition for the more common term of "anti-age". ProAge has identified itself as a line of products that embodies a polar opposite set of beauty-related ideologies, than that of mainstream western culture. Apparently this message has been widely received by the campaign's target demographic, because the products are all highly successful in the consumer market of beauty-care. However, the message "dove is pro-age, not anti-age" is not a reflection of the campaign's true intentions. Through various marketing strategies of print, television, and billboard ads, the producers of this campaign have cleverly disguised this "fresh" line of products, having simply re-packaged a series of standard anti-age products with a "new" set of ideologies. The ProAge notion of "ageless beauty" is ultimately an updated version of the pre-existing hegemonic discourse on beauty and femininity. The products still re-affirm the traditional western belief that youth equals beauty, and aged equals ugly, regardless of the assertions made by marketing ploys. Despite the campaign's apparent discourse on ageless beauty, the notably profitable sales of ProAge products prove that the producers are still pushing a message to female consumers that they should try and remain youthful for as long as possible, in order to remain beautiful. If the creators of the ProAge advertising campaign are truly concerned with the hegemonic beauty standards of women, then why has the campaign generated such success in sales of their "pro-age" products? If the real intent of this campaign was to change mainstream notions of female beauty, then its success would instead be marked by a decline in sales of beauty-care products that seek to defy the human aging process.




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