Will Dove's girl-friendly Super Bowl ad wash out?

Soap maker's spot may stand out amid other eye-catching commercials -- or not

So you're selling soap and you want to broaden your brand's reach. What do you do?

Buy a $2.5 million commercial spot during the Super Bowl and feature a beautiful, half-naked woman covered in suds?

Not any more.

Instead, you air a socially responsible spot that's supportive and respectful of women.

Today, in a severe departure from custom for a Super Bowl broadcast, Dove plans to air a 45-second commercial that deals exclusively with self-esteem issues among girls.

"Thinks she's ugly," the ad says under an image of a girl who looks despondent. Another "wishes she were blonde," while a third "thinks she's fat."

As a chorus of Girl Scouts sings the Cyndi Lauper tune "True Colors," blocks of type say that "more than one in three girls aged 6 to 12 have already been on at least one diet" and that "more than one in three girls feel the media pressure to have a perfect body."

The goal is to spread the word that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. Airing the commercial during the Super Bowl, which last year was watched by 86 million people, means that mothers, fathers, grandparents and boyfriends may also get the message, says Philippe Harousseau, creative director for Dove, a unit of the $49-billion-a-year conglomerate Unilever.

It also may be clever marketing.

Most Super Bowl commercials are intended to build brand recognition among viewers rather than to sell a particular product, says Allison Fass, who covers advertising for Forbes. The Dove commercial, for instance, does not actually push products.

"Because everyone's watching the commercials, there's a lot of competition to stand out," she says. "Some use celebrities, some use animals, some use humor to get the audience's attention. But in this Dove ad, they're using a different technique: They're being poignant and moving."

To a corporate executive, the buzz that typically surrounds Super Bowl commercials makes the cost seem worthwhile. (Harousseau declined to say how much Dove was paying for the ad, although shorter, 30-second spots are selling in the $2.5 million range.)

"You expect Budweiser to have a funny ad in the Super Bowl," says Abe Novick, a vice-president at Eisner Communications, an advertising and marketing firm in Baltimore. "But the unexpected suddenly becomes more newsworthy, and because of the visibility of the Super Bowl, everyone starts talking about it."