This person clearly is not the target market for this campaign (and, not surprisingly, he isn't). The gal is the ad is beautiful, but in an attainable beauty kind of way, wherein I look at that ad and say, yeah, I could look like that. Which is far more effective than the "yeah, right" ads which feature women that obviously have a team of people helping them look that way. And the commerical was amazingly well lit and done considering we know, based on the point of the contest, that it WAS shot by someone with a digital camera in the gals actual shower. I doubt my home movies ever look so good. This almost looked professionally done.
And, unlike said writer, I have a huge problem with those Pro-Age ads. They DO NOT feature older ladies that are in any kind of good shape. And I did not need a giant pull out ad of a naked, overweight, "older" woman in my latest issue of Better Homes & Gardens. It was both gross and embarressing. I don't know what this guy is thinking - "Showering cute girl who looks like a poor man's Ashlee Simpson? Oh how horrible! Naked grandmas? Love it!" Maybe this guy is, like, an old pervert or something.
See? I toldya he shouldn'ta gone there.
I also read some stiff critisicm of the Dove ads -- especially this article on Media 3.0 -- which also puts down the use of poor quality video.
I tend to agree. I don't have a problem with the message -- but why not make it look professional?
- Emily
But the point of the contest was asking real customers to shoot a commerical and then Dove would air the one they liked the best? Wouldn't reshooting the commercial as a professional production get away from the point of the commerical, which is that this a real woman who uses their products shot without any professional makeup people or fancy lighting?
Well, the 3.0 article criticizes the values (which I still think maybe misses the point), but it refrains from comparing it unvaforably to porn and saying the (very attractive) woman in question compares unfavorably in appearance to low-quality porn actresses.
It is still a guy, and thus not the target audience, though he at least asked some people their opinions (though, as a Business Major, I do note a lack of the questions he asked, the number of people, etc etc).
Plus, he deliberately (and explicitly) refrains from attacking the maker of the ad and unfavorably comparing them and the other winners to his imagined standards of amateur filmmaking, as the other person did.
So I think most of the things I objected to are expunged, leaving only a media professional saying that it's silly to try to make commercials without the professionals. Having a similar (and also often unpopular) view about procuring home loans without a loan officer to shop for you (like me), I can have some agreement. 
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