SAN FRANCISCO, April 19 (UPI) -- A new commercial by Dove was designed to instill confidence in how women see themselves, the company said.
The concept behind the three-minute video that has gone viral on YouTube is "to create a world where beauty is a source of confidence and not anxiety," said Fernando Machado, the global brand vice president for the Dove division at Unilever.
The video, which has close to 9 million hits on YouTube, shows forensic artist Gil Zamora asking women to describe themselves, while he draws a sketch based on their descriptions.
The women then leave the room and another person enters and the process is repeated, except the new person describes one of the women Zamora has already sketched.
In every instance, The New York Times reported, the sketch based on the woman's description of herself is less flattering than the one created by someone else's description.
The video, in its essence, is a visual portrayal of the anxiety women feel about how they look. In the video, they are more apt to define themselves through their flaws, rather than through their beauty.
The women are then shown the two portraits side by side. They are visibly moved when discovering they have been harder on themselves than they otherwise might have been over the years.
"It hits on a real human truth for women. Many women undervalue themselves and also the way they look," said Brenda Fiala, senior vice president at Blast Radius, a digital advertising company.
One of the women in the film says the woman in the alternate sketch looks happier than in the one created by her own description of herself.
Looking at the two sketches, she brushes away a tear.
One of the women says the revelation affects "everything."
"It impacts the choices of friends that we make, the jobs we apply for, how we treat our children," she says. "It impacts everything."
She should be more appreciative of her own natural beauty, she says.
