Lose Yourself to Find Yourself
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Dove Real Beauty Generation
Dove South Africa, in partnership with VML, has developed a tool to address the issue of unrealistic beauty standards amplified by generative AI.
Dove South Africa, in partnership with VML, has developed a tool to address the issue of unrealistic beauty standards amplified by generative AI, which often reflects biased, Western-centric ideals and excludes diverse representations, especially from the Global South. This initiative aims to promote inclusivity and redefine beauty standards in the digital age.
• Challenge of AI bias in beauty: Generative AI models tend to reproduce biased beauty standards based on their training data, often marginalizing women from Africa and the Global South by generating predominantly Western-centric images of beauty. Users also find it difficult to create inclusive images due to the challenge of crafting precise prompts for AI tools.
• Innovative platform and campaign: Dove and VML created the Real Beauty Generation microsite using Adobe Firefly’s beta API, allowing users to generate and rate images of women with diverse features such as acne scars and wrinkles. The campaign extended to radio, social media, and influencers to encourage users to “teach AI to see you.”
• Chrome extension for inclusive image generation: The latest advancement is a free Chrome extension that integrates with any AI image generator, helping users create prompts for inclusive, “perfectly imperfect” images. The extension features dropdown menus guiding users beyond traditional beauty ideals, converting their descriptions into effective AI prompts for more representative results.
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• Context
As if contoured, photoshopped, filtered, and curated influencer accounts weren’t setting the bar impossibly high already, generative AI has created a situation where the internet is becoming flooded with images of AI-generated beauty “perfection”. Dove South Africa, in partnership with VML, has created a tool to combat this epidemic of fakeness.
• Challenge
Generative AI tools carry with them a significant problem: their outputs reflect the biases inherent in the data on which they’re trained. Ask an AI to generate a ‘beautiful woman,’ and the result is often a filtered, Western-centric ideal. For women across the Global South – especially in Africa – that means becoming invisible in the digital age.
Even when people want to generate inclusive images of beauty, your picture is only as good as your prompt. And many users struggle to convert the image they have in their minds into words specific enough to prompt an AI effectively.
• Inspiration
Dove has spent 20 years championing Real Beauty in their advertising and messaging. With the rise of AI, Dove and VML saw an opportunity to use the technology for good – redefining beauty standards internationally to be more inclusive and reflect global diversity.
• Idea
It began with the Real Beauty Generation microsite. Dove and VML South Africa developed a platform that used Adobe Firefly's beta API. On the platform, users could generate images of women using prompts that included features like acne scarring, laugh lines and deep-set wrinkles – then rate them.
Meanwhile, VML and Dove took the message to the streets with a full campaign across radio, social media, influencers and more, urging users to "teach AI to see you".
In the latest phase, the team has taken it a step further, developing a world-first Chrome extension that allows users to generate inclusive, perfectly imperfect images of women using any image generation platform of their choice.
Once installed, the extension will automatically appear on screen when a user opens an AI image generator website in their Chrome browser. Drop menus help them describe the image they're trying to create... as well as encouraging them to think beyond traditional ideals of what beauty looks like. On the backend, an algorithm translates the user's descriptive language into technically robust prompts that guide AI systems to produce more representative results. All they need to do is copy and paste the prompt into the image generator.
• Growth
Dove's Real Beauty Generation initiative is an ongoing effort to champion a more inclusive and authentic representation of beauty in the age of AI. The It Chrome extension is free and open. Its user-friendly interface makes it accessible even to users who are not particularly tech savvy.
"Unfortunately, with the rise of generative AI, harmful stereotypes are becoming more prevalent than ever. This tool empowers users to rewrite the narrative around what real beauty looks like.”
• Credits
Chief Creative Officer: Fran Luckin
Executive Creative Director: Theo Ferreira
Creative Director: Dominique Baxewanos
Art Director: Hanro Manefeldt
Development: Simon Kerr, Hannes Matthysen, Tilesh Bhaga
UX: Etta Ferreira, Hanro Mannefeldt
Writers: Dominique Baxewanos, Kerryn Massyn
Account management: Rachael du Plessis, Carmen du Preez, Helen Christoforou
Project management: Kate Rose, Nompumelelo Mabena
Client: Pavla Sessions, Anele Nzimande-Maphanga
