Dove Is Proud Not To #ShowUs Unrealistic Images Of Women In Media, With The Help Of Getty Images
Continuing its efforts on changing beauty standards in digital media, Dove released project #ShowUs that supports diversity and inclusivity at the same time.
In partnership with digital photo company Girlgaze and Getty Images, Dove has collected about 5,000 images on GettyImages.com. The project features 179 women from 39 countries and the photographed talents include plus-size, trans, diverse women and women with skin conditions. The good part is, they were also shot by 116 female-identifying photographers within the Girlgaze network.
In the advertising industry, 70% of women still don’t feel represented and that percent wanted brands and media to depict diverse images of women. That’s why Dove is taking action with Girlgaze Photographers, Getty Images and women everywhere to create Project #ShowUs – the world’s largest stock photo library powered by women to shatter beauty stereotypes around the world. We’re showing women as they are, not as others believe they should be.
Dove Marketing Director Amy Stepanian said,
The purpose of collaboration with Getty Images was to grant all companies access to the photographs for their own marketing and social campaigns. Dove and Unilever will begin using the inclusive imagery across all their products and in campaigns later this year. We want to provide a touch point for these images to be seen and used everywhere. It’s the only way we see change happening.
Sophie Galvani, VP at Dove Global commented,
Dove understands the impact that unrealistic images of beauty can have on a women’s body confidence. We have believed in liberating women from narrow beauty ideals and have showcased beauty diversity in our advertising. However, this is not enough.
Chief Executive Officer at Girlgaze, Amanda De Cadenet commented that while inclusivity and diversity are burgeoning trends, most brands are not willing to invest in it and said, “The people in this campaign are not usually the kind of women that are front and center in commercial projects, but they should be.”
For the process, Getty Images bring in 1 million images a month to its platform, and its partnership with Dove marks its most significant ever. “This is the largest collection of images of women by women that we have ever featured,” said Rebecca Swift, Getty Images senior director of creative insights. She said Getty worked with training the Girlgaze photographers to shoot more commercially and also to pair searchable keywords with each image. That has been particularly important for Getty, as more inclusive search terms have been trending: The term “women leaders” is up by over 202 percent year over year, and “diverse women” has grown by 168 percent.
Dove will be using the images their official website and social channels —On Instagram the brand has 412K followers, and on Facebook, it’s 28M . In addition, the images will be featured on Getty’s and Girlgaze’s social platforms. Fans of these accounts will will be prompted with the#ShowUs hashtag to generate additional images for user generated content.
In 2017, Dove collaborated with Shutterstock and the company’s award-winning photographers in the Image_Hack project for the same goal in 2017 and over 40 million media impressions occured later on.
