No longer just an ad, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty has been immortalized into a documentary by Toronto producer Telefactory (See MIC May 24, 2005). The doc entitled Beauty Quest, is set to air on W Network on Saturday, July 30 at 8 p.m. and follows fashion photog Arline Malakian as she searches for the defining picture of beauty.

‘We saw the Dove photo exhibit and we were really impressed,’ says Leanne Crouch, CEO and exec producer at Telefactory. ‘So we approached Unilever to see if they were interested in a documentary with the very big caveat that it would be an independent production with no campaign propaganda behind it.’

And indeed, with the exception of the doc’s intro, Beauty Quest is brand mention-free. Unilever and W Network then built an entire week’s theme with the documentary as the centerpiece. W will support the doc with five 30-second vignettes to air the week of July 25 from 6 to 8 p.m. starring various W show hosts as they share their thoughts on real beauty. Pre-promos include: on-air spots with a ‘brought to you by Dove’ end tag, tune-in spots on CMT, the Documentary Channel, Calgary’s Broadcast News Channel, a microsite on wnetwork.com and print ads in TV magazines. The show is aiming for 18-54s.