Greenpeace slams Dove over plastic pollution by subverting its 2022 'Toxic Influence' ad

‘Real Harm’ and not ‘Real Beauty’ is what Dove is up to, says Greenpeace.

Greenpeace is pushing Dove’s Toxic Influence—a highly-acclaimed ad film that tackled unrealistic beauty standards on social media—a step further, highlighting the Unilever soap brand’s “hypocrisy” and its contribution to global plastic pollution.

In 2022, Dove and its creative agency of record, Ogilvy, used face-mapping technology and put toxic beauty advice in the mouths of mothers. The video was then shown to them and their daughters, as the latter scrolled through a list of beauty influencers on their phones, to emphasise the influence of toxic beauty standards online.

The environmental organisation, however, does not celebrate the soap brand’s appreciation of real beauty and women. Instead, it argues that Dove harms women worldwide through a nearly six-minute ad film that mirrors “Toxic Influence”.

The video opens with the iconic brand symbol, which represents love and peace, dying. Next, we see a pair of mothers and their daughters speaking positively of Dove and its championing of real beauty over the past 20 years. Midway through, they are shown how the brand is one of the biggest plastic polluters in the world.

It is “pumping millions of single-use plastic bottles and highly polluting plastic sachets into our neighbourhoods,” says a woman, highlighting the soap brand’s degrading effect on the Philippine ecosystem. “Worse, their plastic is being burnt near our homes, and we then breathe in the toxic fumes.”

A major highlight of Greenpeace’s film is the contrast between Dove’s milk-white background and an image of its plastic pollution, rewriting Dove’s Real Beauty branding to ‘Real Harm’.

“I think it is disgraceful that brands can get away with doing this,” remarks one of the two daughters cast in the video, after she claims, “They (Dove) almost advertise themselves as being green”—a result of Dove’s body-positive marketing over the last two decades.

The release of the video is by design, as Dove is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its iconic Real Beauty campaign from 2004, which celebrated real women in a photoshoot rather than casting professional models.

The final still from Greenpeace’s video reads: “If Dove really cares about women and girls, it’s time they stop poisoning our planet with plastic.”

On its website, the environmental organisation points to an upcoming event where global leaders will gather to negotiate a Global Plastics Treaty, “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to end the age of throwaway plastic.”

“Unilever, Dove’s parent company, holds massive sway in these talks. If they feel the pressure from millions of people watching this film, they’ll be forced to back a strong treaty. This could mean all businesses phase out single-use plastic in the next 10 years,” states Greenpeace, urging people to share the message as much as possible.

A few months prior to this move, Unilever in April had said it was rethinking its approach to packaging “to use less, better, or no plastic.” The company, on its website, wrote it had already cut the weight of its packaging by a fifth through better and lighter designs over the past decade.

It is also encouraging consumers to use its bottles for life. “... Think of bottles of our cleaning and laundry products as a ‘bottle for life’—just like a ‘bag for life’ they might use for shopping.”

Not the first salvo

It is not the first time Greenpeace has taken action against Dove or Unilever for alleged pollution.

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A week ago, Greenpeace activists shut down the entrance to Unilever’s headquarters in London, scaled the building, and unfurled a large artwork protesting the soap brand’s status as a major plastic polluter.

In 2023, a 10-foot Dove bottle artwork was placed at the entrance of Unilever’s headquarters, drawing attention to Dove’s indifference to environmental concerns.

In India, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) faced accusations of being a polluter in 2015 when Chennai-based rapper Sofia Ashraf rapped about the company’s mercury contamination in Kodaikanal.

Also Read: HUL responds to 'Kodaikanal Won't' video

"We closed down the factory and launched an investigation into this matter after it arose in 2001. While extensive studies on the health of our former workers and the Kodaikanal environment have not found any evidence of harm, we continue to take this issue very seriously, and it's one we are keen to see resolved. We have been working hard to find a fair and mutually satisfactory resolution at the suggestion of the Madras High Court and have had more than ten meetings with our former employees' representatives since 2014," HUL responded to the video through a post on its website.