[A rare positive application of presence-evoking deepfake technology comes from the brand Dove, as explained in this story from Adweek. See the original version to watch the 3:48 minute film (also available via YouTube). –Matthew]
[Image: A screenshot from “Toxic Influence”: A teen girl and her mother with shocked expressions as they see the mother on screen delivering the same harmful beauty advice found on social media. Credit: Ogilvy]
Dove’s Disturbing Deepfakes Expose Social Media’s Toxic Influence on Teen Girls
The Unilever brand highlights the harmful beauty advice found online
By Brittaney Kiefer
April 27, 2022
Last year it emerged that Facebook had hidden internal data suggesting that Instagram worsens body image issues for teenage girls. The revelation chimes with new research from Unilever brand Dove, which found one in two girls say idealized beauty content on social media causes low self-esteem.
Dove is tackling this problem head-on in its latest campaign to champion wider definitions of beauty and make social media a more positive environment. The brand set up a social experiment that uses Deepfake technology to expose the dangers of toxic beauty advice online.
The #DetoxYourFeed campaign, created by Ogilvy, aims to empower teens to define their own beauty standards and unfollow anything on social media that doesn’t make them feel good about themselves.
The centerpiece of the project is a film, entitled “Toxic Influence,” in which mothers and their teen daughters come together to talk about social media and its influences. As each girl starts scrolling, they are shown a screen where their mom appears and delivers harmful beauty advice, such as encouraging them to get Botox and chemical peels, use at-home lip filler kits, skip meals and file down their teeth with a nail file.
It turns out these are fake versions of the moms, however. Dove used face-mapping technology to put toxic advice into the mouths of the girls’ mothers.
The film warns: “You wouldn’t say that to your daughter. But she still hears it online every day.”
The mothers and their teens then start a conversation about the dangerous influences of social media and unrealistic beauty standards.
Along with this ad, Dove has made educational videos and a “Confidence Kit” with a workbook for parents, caregivers and mentors on how to facilitate conversations with young people about the harms of social media. It is also hosting a free virtual Q&A session on May 12 with cultural expert Jess Weiner and psychotherapist Nadia Addessi, who will offer practical tips to parents about fighting toxic influences on teens’ social media feeds.
The brand wants to encourage a more open dialogue between parents, caregivers and their children about these issues.
“The kind of toxic beauty advice that girls today are getting exposed to on social media is heart-breaking and I only hope that this work kickstarts the conversations that we all need to be having,” said Daniel Fisher, global executive creative director for Unilever and special projects at Ogilvy.
Challenging Toxic Beauty Standards
This project is a follow-up to Dove’s “Reverse Selfie” campaign last year, which documented the extent to which people edit their images online and the turmoil of a girl trying to take the perfect selfie.
As a brand, Dove was at the forefront of championing more positive and empowering beauty standards with its “Real Beauty” campaign in 2004. But lately, with projects such as “Reverse Selfie,” “#SpeakBeautiful” and “#NoDigitalDistortion, its focus has shifted to how body image can be negatively affected by the online world and ways to combat that.
Dove’s research has found that girls are spending more time online, with one in two girls in the U.S. spending more than an hour each day on social media—more than they are spending in person with friends. While unrealistic beauty standards are spreading on social platforms and harming their self-esteem, seven in 10 girls said they felt better after unfollowing sources of idealized beauty content on social media.
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