Dove Exposes Harmful Beauty Standards with an Injectable Billboard in Toronto

For years, Dove has championed wider definitions of beauty and has taken action towards making beauty a more positive space with campaigns. As part of its ongoing mission to make beauty accessible to all, Dove is exposing the harmful nature of beauty ideals and its negative impact on youth.

To illustrate the impact of toxic beauty standards on young girls, Dove constructed a billboard made of syringes – representing the number of Canadian girls ages 14 to 17 who have undergone injectable cosmetic beauty treatments in the last year. The billboard was located at Square One (Toronto).

New research has found that an increasing number of teen girls ages 14 to 17 have turned to invasive procedures like cosmetic injectables to alter their appearance to meet the unrealistic beauty standards they see in their feeds and the world around them.

According to 2023 Vividata research:

• 50,000 Canadian teens 14-17 have had injectables for cosmetic purposes;

• 74% of Canadian girls 14-17 want to change at least one thing about their appearance;

• 62% of Canadian girls 14-17 wish they were more beautiful;

• Less than a half of Canadian girls 14-17 would describe themselves as beautiful;

• Over a third of Canadian girls 14-17 are unhappy with their appearance;

• Over one in five of Canadian girls 14-17 would get cosmetic injectables to be more beautiful.

This effort in awareness is part of Dove Self-Esteem Project’s (DSEP) mission in improving youth self-esteem and body image with the goal of reaching 250 million kids with self-esteem education by 2030. To-date, the Dove Self-Esteem Project has reached the lives of 94.5 million young people across 150 countries. DSEP provides no cost tools proven to build body confidence like the Confidence Kit. Created in partnership with the Centre for Appearance Research, the Confidence Kit provides tips on how to make social media a healthy place where kids can flourish. Learn more about the campaign & download the confidence kit at dove.ca/injectablebillboard.

Francesco Grandi – CCO at Ogilvy Toronto, said: “Every time a young girl scrolls her feed, she’s bombarded with toxic beauty content. No wonder the average age of cosmetic injections keeps getting younger. These girls are feeling pressured to alter the way they look, when they are still changing and developing. When we discovered the 50,000 stat, we were shocked. We thought the best way to bring attention to the issue was to visualize it”.

Rafa Donato - CCO at DAVID Miami, said: "This billboard represents the thousands of teenage girls who received a cosmetic injectable treatment over the last year – likely to fit into unrealistic beauty standards after being exposed to toxic beauty content on social media. Hopefully this piece will ignite a conversation and lead to real action to minimize the types of harmful messages young people are exposed to daily that tells them they need to look a certain way to be beautiful."