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The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty – An Integrated Marketing Communications Approach

Unilever was founded in 1930 as a packaged consumer goods company operating in the

food, home and personal care sectors. Dove was launched in 1957 as a ‘beauty bar’. The message was

– Dove is not soap, it is ¼ moisturizing cream. It was designed to be pH neutral and gentler on the

skin than regular soap. In 2000 Unilever downsized over 1600 brands to 400, with “Masterbrands”

designated to serve as umbrella identities for a range of products. Dove was nominated a Masterbrand

and was called to lend its name to a range of personal care products including deodorants, body wash,

hair care products, facial cleaners and hair styling products.

Objectives

Despite the extension of the product portfolio, Dove continued to be perceived as a bar soap

brand. In order to serve as an umbrella brand, Dove needed to identify with a range of products. The

aim was to create a holistic campaign that could establish meaning for the brand rather than individual

products. Advertising conveying functionality could no longer work as functionality meant different

things in different categories. Unilever needed to re-launch Dove as a beauty brand.

The beauty industry was overcrowded and competition was intense. Yet the competitors

were not so differentiated and advertising sold the same tired messages and stereotypical images of

beauty. Dove needed a truly unique selling proposition to break through the clutter. The objective was

to send a fresh, new message to consumers.

The changing face of advertising also meant the conversation of passive consumers to active

participants. The campaign needed to involve the consumers and create brand volunteers. The Dove

brand needed to achieve cultural relevance to retain brand loyalty.

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The final objective of the integrated marketing communications plan was to increase sales of

Dove beauty products and launch new product lines.

Strategy

In order to find an alternative approach to branding a beauty care product, Unilever

approached StrategyOne in conjunction with professor and psychiatrist Nancy Etcoff and

psychotherapist Dr. Suzy Orback. They surveyed over 3000 women in 10 countries. The results were

astounding (Exhibit 1). According to the research, only 2% of women worldwide considered

themselves beautiful. Women clearly needed to see more realistic standards of beauty.

In order to stand out from the competition, Unilever needed to challenge the restricting

stereotypes in the beauty industry. The tone needed to be straightforward and friendly, setting it apart

from the expert opinion and condescendence of its competitors. Rather than portray the elitism of the

model world, Dove needed an image than was inviting and accepting. It needed to embrace all

women, of all shapes, sizes and ages.

Dove aimed to start a dialogue with its consumers about how beauty is and should be

defined. The advertising needed to provoke debate, not necessarily be agreed with but definitely be

talked about. Finally Dove needed to establish an emotional connection with women, adding the

priceless ‘feel good’ factor to its brand image, much like the strategy of Fair-trade brands like Body

Shop. According to its mission statement, “Dove’s mission is to make more women feel beautiful

every day by broadening the narrow definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of

themselves.” An integrated marketing communications campaign was built on this philosophy.

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Tactics

Unilever engaged advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather, Edelman Public

Relations and Harbinger Communications (in Canada). In 2004 they launched The Campaign for Real

Beauty. The campaign used a combination of traditional print, broadcast and outdoor advertising as

well as internet viral marketing. Its key concentration, however, was public relations. The media

budget was relatively small - $13billion. The idea was to use minimal mass advertising to generate

mass PR.

To promote the campaign, the initial execution was the ‘tick-box’, initially in the UK and

then extended worldwide. Interactive billboards along high-traffic roads in major cities and high-

profile locations like Times Square, New York showed a woman in a black dress and called on

viewers to call a 1-800 number to vote “fat” or “fit”. This was translated into print advertising

directing viewers to the website (Exhibit 2). Disappointingly, 51% voted “fat”. However, Dove

justified this as their strategy was to create debate rather than simply impose their own standards of

beauty on viewers.

Dove indulged in large scale media buying to promote the new campaign. For Flare

magazine’s 25th anniversary issue, Dove bought all the advertising space to feature several black and

white photographs of women and unedited comments by women about themselves. For the Super

Bowl XL, Dove purchased a $2.5million 30-sec spot where it premiered its “Little Girls” television

advertisement. The ad features a series of preteens, each who hates some aspect of her body (Exhibit

3). The advertisement solicits involvement in the cause while promoting the Dove Self Esteem Fund

that funds programs to raise self esteem in young women.

In 2006, Ogilvy created viral videos to host on the Dove website. Rather than traditional 30

second commercials, Dove commissioned these 75 to 90 second films to create word of mouth

“activation”. The first was “Daughters” featuring young women discussing their self esteem issues

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because of the way they look. From the left-over budget, Dove commissioned “Evolution”, which

features a time-lapse sequence transforming an ordinary looking woman into a supermodel with

makeup and digital editing. The tagline reads, “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.” The

film was then placed on YouTube where it has been viewed over 3 million times. The exposure

generated by this internet viral marketing is valued at over $150 million. This was followed by

“Onslaught” and “Amy” which cautions parents to talk to their children before the beauty industry

and its stereotypical advertising skews their perception of what is beautiful.

Dove also used the campaign to launch its new “Firming Cream”. British fashion

photographer, Rankin shot six curvaceous women in their underwear including two students, a

kindergarten teacher, a manicurist, an administrative assistant and a café barista. The tagline read:

“New Dove Firming. As tested on real curves.” To launch the Cool Moisture Body Wash, Dove used

the age old technique of product placement. Contestants on Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice”

competed to create a 30-sec commercial for the new product. In 2006, Dove invited consumers to

create their own ads for the launch of Dove Cream Oil Body Wash. The winning commercial was

aired during the 2007 Academy Awards. Finally, Dove launched an entire new line of beauty

products specifically designed for older women. In a continuance of the Campaign for Real Beauty,

the Pro-Age campaign challenged the notion that only young women are beautiful (Exhibit 4).

In 2006, Dove created the Self Esteem Fund. According to the website, its purpose is two

fold: it “develops and distributes resources that enable and empower women and girls to embrace a

broad definition of beauty” and it “provides needed resources to organizations that foster a broader

definition of beauty.” The fund encourages donations as well as provides resources for mothers and

mentors to help raise young women’s self esteem.

Dove spent an estimated $2.5million in sponsorships to promote self-esteem in both local

and national regions. To kick off the campaign, Dove partnered with the American Women in Radio

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and Television to begin a discussion on beauty by experts of the media and fashion world. It funded a

website developed by the National Eating Disorder Information Centre, helping young women with

body image issues. At a local level, Dove hosted seminars in several junior high schools in Ontario

and a Real Beauty Workshop, Uniquely ME!, in partnership with Girl Scouts of USA to promote self

esteem in adolescents. Dove also hosted two workshop weekends for women in Atlanta and Chicago.

Through a grant from Dove, Harvard University established the Program for Aesthetics and

Well Being to continue the study of the relationship between women’s well being and their portrayal

in the media. “Beyond Compare” a global touring photo exhibit created by Dove showcased 67

female photographers worldwide exhibiting beauty beyond stereotypes.

In addition to the sponsored advertising, the Campaign for Real Beauty received an

invaluable amount of free publicity. It received features on major national morning shows Good

Morning America, The Early Show and the Today Show. It received news coverage in Business

Week, CNN, People and the Chicago Sun, just to name a few. Representatives of the campaign

interviewed on talk shows such as the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Dr Phil, Oprah and the Tyra Banks

Show. These endorsements by celebrities and experts could not have been bought and brought with

them a level of credibility that no advertising campaign could create.

However, Dove also received some amount of criticism in the press and the blogosphere as

certain viewers identified it as the brand for fat girls. Mostly Unilever was accused of

disingenuousness, when consumers realized that it was also the parent company for Axe, a brand that

capitalizes on stereotypical images of women to sell product. (Exhibit 5) The voluptuous, size two

Axe models hardly fit in with Dove’s campaign for “real” beauty.

Apart from winning creative awards, including 4 Clio Awards and a Cannes Lions Award,

the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty was also responsible for a 20% increase in sales in 2005 and a

7.3% increase in 2006. Most importantly it radically changed Dove’s image in the beauty industry.

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Exhibit 1

Excerpts from “THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT BEAUTY: A GLOBAL REPORT - Findings

of the Global Study on Women, Beauty and Well-Being”, September 2004

Only 2% of women around the world choose the word “beautiful” to describe their

looks, fewer even than choose “attractive” (9%), “feminine” (8%), “good-looking” (7%) or “cute”

(7%).

(7%).Almost three-quarters of women (72%) rate their beauty “average” and 69% rate

their physical attractiveness “average.”

Overall, 13% see themselves as somewhat less or much less beautiful or physically

attractive than others.

16% of all women think of themselves as “somewhat more” or “much more” physically

attractive than others.

While 71% are somewhat or very satisfied with their physical attractiveness and beauty,

only 57% of women worldwide are somewhat or very satisfied with their body weight and shape.

Well over half of all women (57%) strongly agree that “the attributes of female beauty

have become very narrowly defined in today’s world.”

More than two-thirds (68%) of women strongly agree that “the media and advertising set

an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t ever achieve.” Women over 30 tend to

believe this more strongly than women 18 to 29.

47% of respondents strongly agree with the relatively extreme statement: “Only the most

physically attractive women are portrayed in popular culture.”

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Exhibit 2

The Tick-Box

Exhibit 3

Little Girls

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Exhibit 4

Dove Pro-Age

Exhibit 5

Axe Shower Gel – Any excuse to get dirty

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