Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture

1. Branding Consumer Citizens: Gender and the Emergence of Brand Culture

|| 15 1 BRANDING CONSUMER CITIZENS GENDER AND THE EMERGENCE OF BRAND CULTURE Download our free self-esteem tools! —Dove website In October 2006, the promotion company Ogilvy & Mather created “Evolution ,” the first in a series of viral videos for Dove soap.1 The ninety-fivesecond video advertisement depicts an ordinary woman going through elaborate technological processes to become a beautiful model: through time-lapse photography, we watch the woman having makeup applied and her hair curled and dried. The video then cuts to a computer screen, where the woman’s face is airbrushed to make her cheeks and brow smooth, as well as Photoshopped and manipulated: her neck is elongated, her eyes widened, her nose narrowed. The video is not subtle; it is a blatant critique of the artificiality and unreality of the women produced by the beauty industry. The concluding tagline reads, “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted. Take part in the Dove Real Beauty Workshops for Girls.” According to its website, the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is “a global effort that is intended to serve as a starting point for societal change and act as a catalyst for widening the definition and discussion of beauty.”2 It is 16 || BrAnding consumer citizens one of a growing number of brand efforts that harness the politicized rhetoric of commodity activism. In short, the “Evolution” video makes a plea to consumers to act politically through consumer behavior—in this case, by establishing a very particular type of brand loyalty with Dove products. The company suggested that by purchasing Dove products, and by inserting themselves into this ad campaign, consumers could “own” their personalized message. Rather than the traditional advertising route of buying advertising slots to distribute the video, Dove posted it on YouTube. It quickly became a viral hit, with millions of viewers sharing the video through email and other media-sharing websites.3 Well received outside of advertising, the video won the Viral and Film categories Grand Prix awards at Cannes Lions 2007. With its self-esteem workshops and bold claim that the campaign can be a “starting point for societal change,” the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a current example of commodity activism, one of the ways that advertisers and marketers use brands as lucrative avenues for social activism, and social movements in turn use brands as launch points for specific political issues.4 Commodity activism reshapes and reimagines forms and practices of social (and political) activism into marketable commodities and takes specific form within brand culture.5 It has a heightened presence in today’s neoliberal era, which has seen an incorporation of politics and anticonsumption practices into the logics of merchandising, the ubiquity of celebrity activists and philanthropists , and yet a new configuration of the consumer citizen. Like other forms of social or political activism, commodity activism hinges on a central The “before” image of the Dove “Evolution” ad. BrAnding consumer citizens || 17 goal of empowerment. However, despite the social-change rhetoric framing much commodity activism, the empowerment aimed for is most often personal and individual, not one that emerges from collective struggle or civic participation. In this context of brand culture, the individual is a flexible commodity that can be packaged, made, and remade—a commodity that gains value through self-empowerment. Commodity activism takes shape within the logic and language of branding and is a compelling example of the ambivalence that structures brand culture. This kind of activism not only illustrates the contradictions, contingencies , and paradoxes shaping consumer capital today but also exemplifies the connections—sometimes smooth, sometimes contradictory—between merchandising, political ideologies, and consumer citizenship. The Dove campaign represents a historical moment of transition, Joseé Johnston notes, characteristic of the kind of change unique to contemporary commodity activism: “While formal opportunities for citizenship seemed to retract under neoliberalism, opportunities for a lifestyle politics of consumption rose correspondingly.”6 Dove offers a productive lens not only into this rise but also into the concurrent retraction of social services and collective organizing that are characteristic of the current political economy—in other words, into the contemporary neoliberal world where anyone, apparently, can become a successful entrepreneur, can find and express their authentic self, or can be empowered by the seemingly endless possibilities in digital spaces, and yet where the divide between rich and poor continues to grow. In The “after” image of the Dove “Evolution” ad. 18 || BrAnding consumer citizens...