Dove has been at the forefront of the self-esteem and beauty conversation since the Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004. But by 2021, the conversation had changed.

Other brands were encroaching on Dove’s position, and the leading edge of the beauty world had moved to social media. The girls of today were growing up with a faster moving, more judgemental beauty world and Dove was nowhere to be seen. Dove needed to re-establish its authority and challenge today’s culture of unrealistic beauty standards for the new generation. We knew the rise in social media usage correlated with falling beauty confidence; Our challenge was to understand why.

Despite our belief that social media was creating a harmful beauty environment, many teens felt it had a positive impact on self-image. Scratching under the surface we found a different story centering around innocent selfies. Filters and photo-editing apps were pressuring girls into altering their images to the point they were hardly recognisable.

Our insight led to a strategic shift for Dove. It wasn’t the beauty industry, but social media’s...