Reverse Marketology

Boston University's Bhattacharya says that these honesty-based campaigns are particularly successful because they build a sense of reciprocity between the advertiser and consumer. Traditional advertising is usually a one-way relationship, in which advertisers try to sell the consumer a product. But these campaigns allow for the relationship to flow both ways: the advertiser does something nice for consumers—tells them how to prevent a headache or increases their self esteem—so the consumers do something nice for the advertiser—buy the product.

This kind of advertising also stands out. Perhaps that's why it has caught on so fast in an industry where there's perfection fatigue. Perhaps women are finally sick of unreal-looking supermodels and actresses. "It's not hitting you over the head, saying, 'You should look like this'," says Adweek's ad critic, Barbara Lippert. "It's stripped down and more bare."

Whether or not campaigns like these can outperform the standard look-like-this-model pitch remains to be seen. Marquette's Grow is quick to point out that these anti-advertising advertisements are still far from the norm. Flip through a fashion magazine and you're more likely to see someone who resembles a stick-thin cover girl than one of Dove's models.

And while the Dove campaign was an unprecedented hit, others may not share in the same financial success. Grow thinks that Weight Watchers' championing an antidiet message is too much of a stretch. Weight Watchers is too enmeshed in the weight loss industry to have any credibility in critiquing it. "Their product is the antithesis of what they are saying," says Grow.

That contradiction marks the fine line these companies must walk with campaigns that both criticize and promote their industries. Even Dove, the self-esteem champion, is having an increasingly difficult time walking the walk. Its new "Go Fresh" campaign, debuting today, is a minidrama about twentysomethings struggling with jobs, friends, love interests, and, of course, loving themselves. For the next five weeks it will air, ironically, during a commercial break from "The Hills," an MTV show one of whose stars, Heidi Montag, been very open about getting breast implants and a nose job (she told Us Weekly she "hated" her nose).

And then there's the uncomfortable fact that Dove's parent company, Unilever, also owns Slim-Fast, marketer of "the hunger control shake," a product whose ads show women saying, "Goodbye roll, hello control!" So much for embracing those curves.

© 2008