The Dove Code
We’re surrounded by perfect images, flawless skin, ideal bodies, and faces that seem too good to be true. And often, they are. Thanks to filters, editing apps, and now AI, the pressure to look “perfect” is stronger than ever.
Dove’s “The Dove Code” campaign, launched in April 2024, continues to matter. It’s getting harder to tell what’s real, isn’t it? But Dove is choosing to celebrate what’s authentic. Real people. Real stories. Real beauty.
Back in 2004, Dove started a powerful campaign after discovering something shocking: only 2% of women around the world saw themselves as beautiful. That one stat helped start a global movement calling out unrealistic beauty standards and encouraging real representation.
Now, 20 years later, Dove is facing a new challenge: artificial intelligence.
AI is now everywhere; from filters to virtual models. While it can be fun and useful, it’s also made it harder to know what’s real. Dove found that almost 9 out of 10 women and girls have come across harmful beauty content online. Even worse, many say they feel pressure to look like these fake, AI-created images.
In the US, over a third of women said they would give up a whole year of their lives just to look “ideal.” That’s painful to hear!
Dove has made a clear promise:
They won’t use AI-generated people in their ads.
They’ve launched The Dove Code—simple guidelines to help people and brands make more realistic and inclusive AI images.
And most importantly, they’re keeping real women and girls at the heart of everything they do—not edited versions of them.
As body image expert Dr. Phillippa Diedrichs says, seeing real people helps us feel seen too.
This campaign works because it’s real. People are tired of feeling like they’re not enough. Dove speaks to that. It also comes at the right time—AI is everywhere, and we all need to think about how it’s affecting us. And it empowers women by reminding us that we don’t have to change who we are.
What can we take from this?
Representation matters. When we see people who look like us, we feel more confident.
Technology should help us, not hurt us.
And brands have power. What they choose to show can either build us up or tear us down.
Dove is choosing to lead with honesty and care. Being real might just be the most powerful thing of all.
