I consider myself a fan of Dove’s campaign for real beauty. Initially though, when I first caught sight of their advertisements, I was less than impressed. I wasn’t alone. Many consumers have been calling Dove out for being overly self-congratulatory. Just because they use models with more meat than skeletons, can Dove really claim to be a champion for women’s empowerment? They are still airbrushing. Stretch marks, cellulite and blemishes are still no where to be found. Initially, older women were not being featured. And none of their models are fat—they just don’t look anorexic.

Since the campaign’s inception, however, Dove has made some small but commendable inroads. After legitimate complaints, Dove began to feature older women in their ads. While people questioned the company’s sincerity to the cause, the company started the Dove Self-esteem Fund, which aims to develop and distribute resources ‘that enable and empower women and girls to embrace a broad definition of beauty’, and to provide needed resources ‘to organizations that foster a broader definition of beauty’.

Dove also has a pretty elaborate website dedicated to the campaign, which has a hodgepodge of resources including an advice column, interactive quizzes, fact sheets and educational videos.

The site also encourages you to send ‘Real Beauty E-cards’ to your friends ‘to tell them how beautiful they really are’. But I don’t recommend it. Not just because the images on the e-cards are tacky, but because they are glaringly contrary to what the campaign purports to be about—‘a broader, healthier, more democratic view of beauty’. But the animated images on these cards perpetuate a pretty homogenous, un-inspiring, and un-real view of beauty.

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You know how Dove likes to yap about how their models are real women with real curves? Well, the animated women in their e-cards [shown above] have no curves. In fact, they are eerily thin–the type of unrealistic thin that Dove chastises other companies and popular media for promoting.

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Sure, one can contend that these cards–with their bright colors and clever rhymes–are nevertheless endearing and positive or at least harmless. But they aren’t promoting positive and healty body images. The third image [above] does quite the opposite. The proportions on that beret-sporting lady are more extreme and distorted than the infamous Barbie’s. If I sent my niece a card like that, I don’t thinmk I could live with myself because the card’s underlying message is this:

In Salon, Rebecca Traister astutely points out that the Campaign for Real Beauty is used particularly to advertise for Dove’s skin firming products, not for other products like its shampoos and soaps. Traister argues that the campaign is about smart marketing not women’s health and empowerment. After all, testing firming cream on a size two model is hardly as convincing as having it “tested on real curves”.

[”New Dove Firming. As tested on real curves.”]

Traister suggests that the stated goal of the Campaign for Real Beauty is at odds with Dove’s profit maximizing goal. If Dove was sincere about a healthier and more democratic view of beauty, we would see a different sort of e-cards. We would see girls picking their noses, grass-stained knees, dirt under fingernails, meaty girls, wild eyes and knotty hair. Needless to say, the first image shown here [1] would be a bit different. Forget the nonfat lattés, those two dames would be digging into slabs of steak. And the one on the right with the orange crop top would be showing off a round, satisfied tummy with rolls. In the third image [3], waistlines would be widened. The bike-riding gal would not only be wearing floral-patterned pink; she would be sporting all sorts of colors. Her mother next to her–instead of standing idly behind her–would be playfully chasing behind on a bike of her own.

Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty can do better. I don’t expect them to take my e-card design proposals seriously (even though I think they are good ones), but Dove could at least yank their current e-cards off from their website. Despite the qualms I have with the campaign, I am still an overall fan–just not a super fan. Even if it is primarily a marketing strategy, it is still refreshing to see women wider than Kate Moss on the billboards. Sure, Dove is still promoting a restrictive standard of beauty, but it is at least relatively less restrictive than before. In addition, since it’s inception, the campaign has sparked much dialogue about the issue of body image and women’s health.

There is some room for improvement without trade-off in company profits. Since the campaign began, Dove has to some extent been playing it by ear, tweaking and expanding the campaign as they hear from consumers and critics. But the campaign has limits. So long as Dove markets products like anti-wrinkle and skin firming cream, the Campaign for Real Beauty will never really achieve its stated goals. The campaign sure isn’t revolutionary. It’s probably disingenuous. But at least it’s something.