Dove: Evolution of A Brand

Dove : Evolution of a brand
In 2007, Unilever’s Dove was the world’s

number-one “cleansing” brand in the
health and beauty sector, with sales of
over $2.5 billion a year in more than 80
countries.
The first Dove product, called a beauty bar, was launched in 1957 with the
claim that it would not dry out your skin the way soap did, because it was not
technically soap at all.
Dove had recently launched what it termed
a Masterbrand campaign under the title of
“Campaign for Real Beauty”.
Dove was tapped to become a Masterbrand in February 2000.
In that role, it was called on to lend its name to Unilever entries in

personal care categories beyond the beauty bar category, such as
deodorants, hair care products, facial cleansers etc.
In order to be a Masterbrand, it needed to do something
different—it had to establish a meaning for Dove that could
apply to and extend over the entire stable of products.
Unilever decided, that Dove should stand for a point of view.

Their “USP”
USP is the very essence of what you are offering.
USP needs to be so compelling that it can be used as a

headline that sells your product.
A search for that point of view began right away.
A process of exploratory market research, consultation with experts, conversations with

women, and message testing led to “The Campaign for Real Beauty.”
1. The result was the so-called Tick-Box campaign. In this campaign, bill boards were
erected and viewers were asked to phone 1-888-342-DOVE to vote on whether a
woman on the billboard was “outsized” or “outstanding.”
A counter on the billboard showed the votes in real time. The campaign attracted keen
public interest, as “outsized” first raced ahead and then fell back.
2.The next series of Dove ads, in June 2005, were known internally as the Firming
campaign because they promoted a cream that firmed the skin.
They featured six “real” women cheerfully posing in plain white underwear.
Dove marketing director forthe U.S., Kathy O’Brien, told the press that the
company wanted the ads to “change the way society views beauty,” and
“provoke discussion and debate about real beauty.
3.The next step in the campaign was particularly controversial. At a Dove leadership team
offsite meeting, an effort was made to engage executives in the idea behind The “Campaign for
Real Beauty” by filming their own daughters discussing their self-esteem challenges.
The impact was enormous, and the Ogilvy and Mather advertising agency
quickly turned the idea behind the film into an ad.
Youtube Video : Dove true colours superbowl commercial
Tillemans,The general manager of unilever’s north American skin business commented,
“Here was a brand in the health-and-beauty category, blatantly out to debunk the dream that
supermodel beauty was within your grasp. We were saying that the beauty industry was
portraying an unattainable and stereotypical image of beauty, and yet there we were in the
beauty industry.”
Nevertheless,
supporters of the ad prevailed and it ran in the 2006 broadcast of the Superbowl football.
4. Stage four of the Real Beauty campaign involved not an advertisement, but a film. In
Canada, the Dove regional brand-building team was running self-esteem workshops for
women, and advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather developed a 112-second film to drive
traffic to the workshops.
Video : Dove real beauty sketches “you are more beautiful then you think”
Unilever crafted a mission statement to serve as an anchor to the variety
of creative initiatives that unified “The Campaign for Real Beauty.”
Harousseau described Unilever’s media plan for “The Campaign for Real Beauty” as
breaking every rule in the company.
The ad was released to YouTube, and it was among the most downloaded commercials
ever to appear on YouTube, and its popularity was the subject of considerable
newspaper, radio and television coverage.
It generated volumes of discussion on chat rooms, with contributions on topics
like anorexia and heartfelt interchanges between fathers and daughters.
PUBLIC RELATION
Unilever’s public relations strategy was an element, together with advertising,

media planning, consumer promotions, and customer marketing, in an
integrated approach to marketing planning.
The final pillar of the plan was to “walk the talk.”
Unilever established the global Dove Self-Esteem Fund to raise the self-esteem
of girls and young women.
In the U.S., the fund supported uniquely ME!, a partnership with the Girl Scouts
of the USA that helped build self confidence in girls aged 8 to 17 with
educational resources and hands-on activities.
CONCLUSION
In September 2006, Landor Associates identified Dove as one of 10 brands with the
greatest percentage gain in brand health and business value in the past three years.
It computed that the brand had grown by $1.2 billion.
Much of the growth was attributable to its extension into new

personal care categories, and exactly how much could be credited to “The Campaign
for Real Beauty” was not a question anyone had evidence to answer.
The campaign had touched a nerve with the public.
Thousands of blogs and Internet chat forums showed a rich diversity of public dialog.
There were declarations by fathers to daughters on themes like selfesteem,

and there were endorsements of Dove’s stand against stereotypes of beauty.
Alicia Clegg, blogging on Brandchannel.com, summed up her view of the Dove strategy as
follows:
“Taking up the cudgels for reality is a risky strategy for Dove. The underlying idea is
appealing; the difficulty is in how to express it. When Dove ran its Masterbrand advertising, it
was criticized by some for choosing unrepresentative “real” women—a 96-year-old, described
by one marketer as: “the old lady equivalent of a super-model”; a heavily freckled, but
enviably cute, 22- year-old, and so on. The latest campaign has a harder edge, tipping the
balance away from aspiration toward realism
DISCLAIMER:
These slides were created by Divyanshu Pal Nagar,
as part of an internship done under the guidance of
Prof. Sameer Mathur (www.IIMInternship.com)
Marketing Professor at IIM Lucknow;

Ph.D. and M.S in Marketing from
Carnegie Mellon University; previously
Marketing Professor at McGill
University

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Dove : Evolution of a brand

In 2007, Unilever’s Dove was the world’s

In that role, it was called on to lend its name to Unilever entries in

Unilever decided, that Dove should stand for a point of view.

USP needs to be so compelling that it can be used as a

A process of exploratory market research, consultation with experts, conversations with

Unilever’s public relations strategy was an element, together with advertising,

It computed that the brand had grown by $1.2 billion.

Much of the growth was attributable to its extension into new

There were declarations by fathers to daughters on themes like selfesteem,

Marketing Professor at IIM Lucknow;

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