• by Christine Bittar , February 5, 2007

Cover Girl may be the next Dove--at least in how it uses real women in ads.

The Procter & Gamble cosmetic brand last week held an open casting call in Manhattan in search of "real women"--one or more to be a face of the brand, appearing in a print campaign from Grey, New York, slated to break in June.

The search was hosted by actress/singer Queen Latifah, who has been a Cover Girl spokesmodel for the last five years.

The open call--which took place in a jazz club--attracted about 2,000 women, with 36 finalists called back to audition. One or more winners will be revealed in two weeks. The new model(s) will appear in ads for the Queen Collection, a new Cover Girl line for women of color. The call was open to women of color between the ages of 18 and 48.

Women who auditioned in front of Queen Latifah and P&G executives were asked to discuss how they have achieved inner and outer beauty, and why they should be chosen to represent the brand.

In addition to Latifah, other women currently among Cover Girl's group of spokesmodels include actress Keri Russell and Christie Brinkley, who at 50 was brought back on the brand she fronted as a young model in the 1970s.

While the audition process was conducted in a casting call format, the attempt by P&G to use and promote unknowns--and perhaps women who do not look like models--is similar to Unilever's "Campaign for Real Beauty." Created by Ogilvy & Mather to promote the Dove brand, the campaign has taken on several incarnations since its launch in 2004, and has been a consumer success as well as one lauded within the advertising and marketing community.

Although this is the brand's first call for unknowns or real women, as a Cover Girl spokesmodel, Queen Latifah could also be considered a "real woman" of sorts--albeit a famous one--with a body type that's not representative of the typically slender model.