Dove Ad Drawing Raves, Views

(CBS)  Dove is making headlines again with another "real beauty" ad.

Last summer, the soap maker gave us its "real women" in their underwear campaign.

Several months later, there was the Super Bowl ad with young girls telling how they really feel about themselves.

Now, there's a new ad called "Evolution," found only on the Internet.

It targets the image of the beautiful models we see on billboards and in magazines.

The video takes a plain-looking woman and shows us the hard work involved in making her look good. It's not just doing her makeup and hair. Artists have to manipulate her image with a computer to make it look the way they want.

The transformation is stunning.

And the result is "fantastic," Adweek magazine advertising critic Barbara Lippert told co-anchor Rene Syler on The Early Show Friday.

She says the video, which can be found on Dove's Web site and YouTube, has already gotten hundreds of thousands of hits.

The ad aims right for women's self-esteem, Lippert says, showing how much work goes into making someone look like the images so many women, especially teens, aspire to.

"Even though we're all so media savvy, we were knocked out by this," Lippert said.

"It's an amazing visual piece," she observed, calling it a "genius media strategy. …All they did was put it on the Internet for (what amounts to) zero-dollars, and it's gotten about 500,000 hits on YouTube."

Lippert says the ad shows teen girls, "Even Heidi Klum is not Heidi Klum on those billboards. You are so manipulated, and so photo-shopped."

"I guess what Dove is saying is, 'You should love yourself, but still put cream on it!'

To see the video, click here.

[fleetst]

Your story perpetuates the problem with this line: "The video takes a plain-looking woman and shows us the hard work involved in making her look good." Why is a woman "plain" and not good-looking if she isn't completely manipulated and made-over first? It is this kind of absurd thinking that needs to stop.

[squiz2]

There should be more ad campaigns like Dove's. I'm so tired of seeing the typical models, the "ideal" women on tv. It's shoved into our brains every day that we should have long blonde hair, delicate features, a Barbie body, yada yada. Women should feel comfortable in their own bodies, love themselves, and say F YOU to all of the media pressures that make us so insecure.

The irony of the article? Next to it is a link for the special report on "Beauty and Fashion Tips." No F'ing thank you.