Dove's 'Evolution' Shows Power Of Video Revolution

by Alan Schulman, Tuesday, July 10, 2007
THERE ARE TIMES IN every creative practitioner's career when
inevitably you come across some execution that is so simple, yet so
powerful, you're left wondering how something so obvious hasn't
occurred to you to do yourself on one of your own brands. Maybe we're
just too busy getting lost in the advertising trees to see the simple
power of the human forest.

Or, maybe it's also because, like so many skunkworks projects and
unknown change agents, the most innovative thinking and
transformational ideas surface by sneaking up through the middle of
our industry, rather than being bestowed on the world from the top
down.

I would venture to say that such is the case with Ogilvy/Canada's
viral video phenom, Dove's "Evolution" -- winner of both Cyber and
Film Lions at last month's Cannes Advertising Festival. This should be
a wake-up call to all of us that, from YouTube to your tube, the
medium isn't the message.... the message is!

So what can we learn from a breakthrough piece of creative work like this?

1) The evolution will not be televised. While big advertising ideas
and great storytelling have traditionally been reserved for the craft
of the :30 televised commercial, the world of online video, viral or
not, has become just as legitimate a source for both branded
information and entertainment as television has -- when it's done
right.

2) The desktop has democratized execution. Grabbing a digital camera
and executing an idea from your gut may not always start out on a
creative brief, but rather, in the new lab known as your laptop
computer. Got an idea? Show, don't just tell.

3) Advertisers will either "be" the content via longer-form,
brand-centric infotainment, or "sponsor" the content with honest,
entertaining spots like this one that offers brand truths that overlap
with real consumer truths -- in this case, extending the definition of
real beauty by showing what it isn't -- and then standing up to
educate teen girls who are being seduced by the pink jungle to,
instead, emulate what beauty "really" is.

4) Video production skill sets once reserved for the bastion of big TV
agencies are slowly beginning to reside in the halls and cubbyholes of
digital agencies, while concurrently, technologists are suddenly
appearing in the brainstorming sessions of traditional creative shops.
This is a good thing.

5) When you have a big idea, it shows. Again and again. It writes
itself in different ways in different hands. Dove's "Real Beauty,"
expressed one way in traditional American media, took on an entirely
new expression in the hands of the Canadian creatives who saw it just
a little differently.

What this kind of evolution also proves is that these are
opportunistic times for creatives and creators who are ready to take
some chances and stretch out on an idea. It takes inspiration, guts, a
spirit of independence and the tools to bring them to life. Waiting
around for test scores, or wondering if there will be enough
production dollars remaining after the TV campaign is shot to leave
room for other video projects, won't get you far.

Maybe far enough to enter them in Cannes. That's the easy part.

Winning? Well now, that requires real beauty!