Beauty is not defined by shape, size or colour. It’s about feeling the best version of yourself — authentic, unique, real. These qualities have depicted Dove’s message over the last decade to women all over the world. The actors seen on Dove’s website and in its television commercials and online spots aren’t supermodels sporting the unrealistic curves and perfect skin advocated by the media and entertainment industry. The long-running campaigns have been led by Ogilvy Canada and continue to emphasize the message that “beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety.” Dove’s latest commercials shine a spotlight on health-care workers around the globe, standing on the front lines battling the invisible enemy, COVID-19. The campaign continues to remind us what beauty and kindness really look like. Divya Singh, Dove’s marketing manager, states that “we created this campaign to recognize heroic women and men on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and show the world that courage is beautiful.”

As close-up images of health-care workers, all appearing beyond exhausted, illuminate screens around the world, doctors and nurses wear the raw, red indentations from their surgical masks and protective equipment like battle scars. Wrinkles and lines have formed on their faces from seeing the never-ending slew of patients entering the emergency room with uncontrollable fevers, barely able to breathe as pneumonia has infiltrated their lungs. To this point, 1.3 million cases of coronavirus have been diagnosed worldwide. For the health-care workers, this virus knows no boundaries — they have seen the unseeable. Their eyes share the story of an amazing group of health-care heroes who have emotionally come together from across the globe, fighting this pandemic in unison with hope, sacrifice and unrelenting determination. The caption at the end of the commercial reads, “Courage is beautiful.” These are the true faces of real beauty.

“The front-line workers pictured in the ads demonstrate the toll that their work is having on them, but we see their work and their courage as an act of beauty,” Singh indicates. “From the Unilever standpoint, as the world’s biggest soap company, we have a responsibility to help protect lives and livelihoods around the world.” Dove Canada is donating $1 million worth of personal-care products to Canadian health-care workers, such as body wash, soap and shampoo. Last week, the broader Unilever Canada company bestowed an additional $3 million worth of food, soap, personal-care and hygiene products on organizations in the Greater Toronto Area, Simcoe County (in southern Ontario) and Montreal. Unilever also intends on contributing another $153 million to help in the fight against COVID-19, via donations of soap, sanitizer, bleach and food products.

As Dove continues its financial support to help rid the world of COVID-19, its commercials featuring our stoic health-care professionals underline their commitment to fighting this battle.