In 2013 Dove released a short film called “Real Beauty Sketches” as a part of their “Campaign for Real Beauty”. Just one month after its release, it received more than 114 million total views, making it the most viral ad video ever up to that point. It has since gone on to win a number of awards.

In the film, a handful of women were asked to come to a loft in San Francisco, but were not told why. After meeting each other, the women were taken one at a time into a room where Gil Zamora, an FBI-trained sketch artist, asked the women to describe themselves from behind a curtain. The women were prompted to describe themselves via a serious of questions, and then sketched them according their descriptions.

The women described themselves in a predominately negative way. For example, they used phrases such as “a fat rounder face,” “protruding jaw,” and “big forehead.” The next day each women was described by a stranger whom they had met in the loft. In contrast, the strangers used more positive language to describe the same person.

The two sketches were then shown to the original women. In all cases the second sketch is more flattering, and more accurate, than the first. Watching the reactions of the women is a real buy ambien best prices online tear-jerker as you see the strong reactions each woman experiences when they are shown their two portraits.

Towards the end the sketch artist asks a woman, “Do you think you’re more beautiful than you say?” She pauses only briefly to say, “Yes”. The film then concludes with a Dove logo and the statement: “You are more beautiful than you think.”

Of course, the video has had its fair share of criticism, but it has a very Flawsome message I think we can all learn from. We are often far more critical of ourselves, than we are of others and than they are of us. Flaws are nothing more than lop-sided perceptions. In one of the talks I deliver, I speak about four kinds of perceptions – one of which is OUR perception of OURSELVES.

Just because you think something is a flaw, doesn’t mean your customers do too. They’ll often base how they feel about you on how you feel about you. To change your customer’s perceptions about your flaws, you need to start with – in the words of the immortal Michael Jackson – the man in the mirror!

You can watch the video here.