Dove’s Newest Self-Esteem Video Targets Preteen Girls

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Dove's viral video campaign team is taking a break from forcing self-esteem lessons on women. The beauty brand's newest ad focuses on confidence building for preteen girls instead, Adweek reports. The short film is a riff on that old "the grass is always greener" adage, with each girl looking into the camera saying something she'd wish to change about her appearance, then a quick cut to a girl who has that physical attribute. A girl with curly hair wishes she had straight hair, then a girl with straight hair wishes she had blond hair and so on and so forth. The film ends with a statement reading, "Let's change one thing...How our girls see themselves."

It's all unscripted, so the girls confess their biggest insecurities to the camera, like wishing their skin was a different color or that they were thinner or that their breasts were a different size. "Oh my God, this is so difficult, I'm sorry," one girl said in the video.

"Participants were selected based upon questionnaires they completed about their body confidence," Dove brand director Jennifer Bremner told Adweek. "The girls featured in the film did not know about the 'Change One Thing' film concept in advance, so their reactions that you see in the film are genuine."

She told AdAge: "We're hoping to inspire girls to realize they don't need to change themselves and help build a more positive relationship with their own beauty."

The film goes along with Dove's Self-Esteem Project, which just picked up a new partner in Pinterest. "Dove is the leader in helping women and girls build positive self-esteem, and we do this through many different mediums," Bremner told AdWeek. "Pinterest shares our commitment to champion positive content online by taking a stand against messages and images that are harmful to women's and girls' self-esteem."