Dove and Axe

We have been talking a lot in class about the hegemony of the beauty industry and how it is their undying goal to get girls to buy their products. I was watching the Dove transformation video of the model being "beautified" with Photoshop (which, from what I understand, can't actually be done entirely with Photoshop, but requires other editing software) when I started to read the comments below the video. One caught my eye: "Pure hypocrisy: brought to you by the same company that owns Axe." I found that so crazy because on the surface, Axe and Dove seem to be completely different companies with a completely different set of values.

The whole idea of Dove soap is to find the inner beauty and not give in to the pressures imposed by the media. Axe, on the other hand, markets to men and tells the consumer that if he uses this product, he will get the girl. A company called Unilever owns both of these products, and other skin care products such as Pond's, Sunsilk, and Vaseline. This is similar to the big 6 media conglomerations that we talk so much about in this field, but instead of different TV stations with certain agendas, they are different products with different auras, so to speak. While Dove is encouraging young women to find their inner beauty, Axe inspires men to find only the outer beauty in said women. It seems that contradictory messages by the conglomerate on top in the name of profits is a little more common than we might realize.

If you're interested, here's the link to Unilever's branding section of their webpage: http://www.unilever.com/brands/