For a company with the resources and experience of Unilever, that sounds like a simple enough task - just throw together some spots featuring women tossing their hair or splashing on some water while extolling how great X makes them look et voila. That's where Unilever decided to go in a direction completely uncharacteristic for the beauty category. TV was purposely eschewed altogether in favour of print and outdoor because the latter were thought to better reflect the desire to have a discourse in public spaces. That's where Janet Kestin, CD at Toronto-based Ogilvy, says Unilever got "gutsy." It wasn't a strategy accepted in all corners (see sidebar, page 32), but it flew and it appears to be working.

Sure the client did all sorts of research to find out what appealed to women. It revealed that all women want to be beautiful - but their own kind of beautiful and not something dictated by sets in Hollywood. What's fascinating, however, is how Unilever used the insight: It had women look at themselves and open a dialogue on what beauty is.

Although Dove's marketing has several touch points, undoubtedly the most visible and striking has been its "tick-box" print and outdoor executions featuring images of everyday women along with two choices consumers can use to interpret their beauty (for example, "Fab? or Fat?," "Bald? or Beautiful?"). For this, Dove made the conscious decision not to use models made up to "look like" everyday women.

Toronto media agency PHD came up with the idea for an electronic billboard in downtown Toronto inviting consumers to call in on their cellphones and vote. It went up on Oct. 13 and has recorded over 3,600 votes with the verdict on "fab or fat?" running about 50/50. The campaign also included a buy in 60 health clubs across Canada with clings, posters and sampling.

"Dove decided that if we were really going to work to debunk stereotypes and widen the definition of beauty, then we couldn't just replace our definition of beauty," explains Iles. "We would just be substituting one dictator for another. The idea is to give beauty back to women and to say that we want to show real women and open up a discussion about what is beautiful. We thought that until we give [the discussion] back to everyday people, particularly women, we won't really achieve our goals."

Reaching those goals also involved some other noteworthy marketing efforts following a strategy Iles says came as a result of a decision to do fewer but more powerful initiatives (rather than, for example, sampling days at Wal-Mart). Enter "Beyond Compare," a strikingly designed photo exhibit featuring the work of 67 female photographers from around the world. Enter a series of seminars in Ontario junior high schools on the issue of body self-image. And enter the decision to buy all the ad space in Flare magazine's 25th anniversary issue (no, really - Dove bought all of it).

Incredibly, Ogilvy made that last execution look like anything but a cheap sell-out by Flare. Instead, what readers got was a compelling, thoughtful series of unedited comments by women about themselves, spaced throughout an issue filled with nothing but arresting black and white photos of women by Bryan Adams. Kestin explains the line Ogilvy had to walk and how they did it.