To me they did a good job of emphasizing the contrast between the self-perception and the third-party perception of these womens' faces.
I'm not sure I follow the stigma you seem to convey about "traditionally beautiful adjectives". Some of these women had long faces, large teeth, wrinkles. All attributes that were the center of their attention despite never being the focus of the people who looked at them.
I have a hard time understanding how it is exploitative — this terms still bothers me in itself because it's utterly vague — for this video to compare and contrast how strangers synthesize a woman's physical presence against the way they see themselves.
"The lesson for these women is that they aren't as ugly as they thought, and in fact they fit right in with traditional beauty standards."
No, that's your — actually cynical, in this instance — interpretation. What is shown in the video is the clear emphasis of several of these women on their lesser physical traits (wrinkles, unease, tired eyes, imperfect features, etc.) and their surprise, relief, emotion at the discovery that they're not at all being perceived as they pessimistically imagine to be.
The outsiders don't see them as beautiful, serene, charismatic because beauty isn't destroyed by singularity or difference, especially when personality comes into play. The "buddies" interacted with these women, they didn't just look at pictures of them. That's a world of difference.
"At this point, they might not be beautiful if their buddy had described them the same way?"
Again, your cynicism blinds you to the beauty in that demonstration. If I looked piece by piece at these women's faces the way they look at themselves, maybe I would find many flaws. But as a whole, as part of a personality and presence, they are beautiful.
While it's true that none of the women portrayed appeared to have "non-traditional beauty" (what is that? compared to what tradition? in what decade of what century?) few of them would stand out in the crowd of faces I see every day. In my mind that doesn't make them spectacularly above or below the standard of beauty. I worry this is a rabbit hole you're being distracted by.
"Call me a crazy feminist, but this is a subtle part of the video that Dove does not want you to think about. How you feel about your appearance is irrelevant as long as men think you look good."
I won't call you a crazy feminist, this smells more of anti-corporatism than anything else. Dove can't have noble motives when it comes to women and their self-image because they sell beauty products? Sure, that's a possibility. Yet, how does pushing the idea that women shouldn't derive confidence about their appearance from within help Dove's bottom line?
I think that's a shoddy line of reasoning. But maybe I'm being naïve. I really dislike when people are too quick to assume dishonesty (of people or companies) when incompetence or clumsiness are far more likely. Especially for such a tricky topic.
"This brings me to the biggest problem I have with this ad: none of it actually happened. It's a marketing campaign, not a research study. It was scripted. The artist was told to exaggerate descriptions, the women were cast based on a very narrow range of physical qualities. This may be a cynical viewpoint, but does Dove expect me to believe this is real?"
Why jump to this assumption, again, when you are given no grounds to distrust? If Dove did fake or exaggerate this campaign they should be distrusted and shunned when and only when they are shown to have done so. I know it's good to be skeptical regarding advertising, because it has had a habit of bending reality to its will, especially regarding women. That alone forgives your bold assertions, but you're not even pretending to make conjectures. You're actually stating what should (in earnest) only be mere skepticism as a fact, that's shocking to me.
"Demonstrably, all of these women are thin and relatively young."
Demonstrably, your definitions of "all" and "relatively young" is loose: http://link.olivierlacan.com/OOBR
"What's the message for women who DON'T look like that? Dove isn't redefining anything."
Is the message about how these women look? Or is it about how they see themselves? Just like it is about you and I see ourselves? I think you missed the point.
"Dove isn't redefining anything. Dove isn't broadening the definition of beauty."
That's a fault of the campaign's name. Not of this particular video, which unless I missed it, didn't claim to redefine or broaden anything, except the idea that how you think you're perceived doesn't define how you're perceived.
"I have never liked the Dove Real Beauty campaign. "This is what real beauty looks like" illustrated with a group of six, young, mostly toned women is not representative of what women look like and therefore is still drawing a line in the sand about how to define beauty."
I'm sure this is relevant to Dove's campaign. It isn't however relevant to this video. Your opinion of this video seem to be influenced by your previous opinion about the campaign, which is understandable. I was aware of the campaign, but I judged this video on its on merits, which led me to very different conclusions.
"I have to link you to this article for a totally spot-on summary of the ad's take-home point: It's important to feel beautiful because "it couldn’t be more critical to your happiness." Beauty is still everything. It's the key to your value as a person and having a fulfilling life."
That's a straw man. The video neither claims (nor hints) that beauty is "everything" nor that it is the key to anything. Wouldn't you say that it's reasonable to assert that feeling beautiful (in some way) is psychologically positive? You seem to imply it's not critical to happiness. I don't think that's a very solid position to hold, but again, I may not be aware of relevant research on the subject.
"And Dove? You are soap. I'm not buying you because you called me pretty."
Well, I'm sure you can do better than that. (That's patronizing, this video isn't.)
Sincerely, Olivier