• by Mallory Russell , July 10, 2014

This year, Dove celebrates the tenth anniversary of its Campaign for Real Beauty. The campaign is as ingrained in the brand’s identity as “Just Do It” is with Nike. And now, the video space is finally seeing the effects of its influence with a recent outpouring of female empowerment-themed campaigns.

The goal of the campaign was to celebrate the differences in women's bodies and inspire women to be comfortable in their own skin. But in its use of non-traditional models, Dove also made its campaign the centerpiece of ongoing debate about how society views women, their appearances, and their value.

Debate is a very important part of the Dove brand and it’s at the core of the brand's most-viewed campaigns, “Real Beauty Sketches” (141.9 million views) and “Patches”(58.3 million views). In both cases, viewers were split on their opinion of the Dove message – some found it inspirational and comforting, while others found it patronizing and hypocritical in its teaching that beauty is still paramount in judging women. This debate drove media coverage, buzz, and increased viewership for these videos and the brand.

The increased debate around issues of female empowerment has also paved the way for other brands to join in the conversation.

Most recently, Always released “#LikeAGirl,” a campaign that challenges the notion that “throwing like a girl” is a bad thing. The campaign has taken the internet by storm over the last two weeks. It garnered more than 29 million views.

Pantene also released a female empowerment campaign. “#NotSorry” sheds light on the tendency of women to over-apologize in unwarranted situations. It generated more than 4 million views. The campaign was a sequel to the brand’s 2013 campaign, which talked about the negative words used to describe women.

There are numerous other brands that are preaching the “go girl” message. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, the startup toy company GoldieBlox, and the frank talking Hello Flo are just a few that are following the path that Dove paved. The popularity of these empowered videos that spark gender debate follows the larger trend of purpose-driven marketing happening in branded video right now.

For the same reason that we saw an influx of successful branded videos from charities this year, viewers are also attracted to messaging from for-profit brands that tell great narrative stories, elicit emotion, and make them think about bigger issues in the world.