March 12, 2007
Dove Offers Real Lessons in Marketing
Randall Rothenberg, president-CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, believes there is much for marketers to learn from Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign. In fact, in an article on AdAge.com, Mr. Rothenberg offered four particularly important lessons to be learned from the Dove experience.
The first is that solid ideas (aka marketing messages) do work globally. The idea for the campaign, he pointed out, came from the Ogilvy office in Dusseldorf, Germany. The campaign was picked up as a news story that equated it having more to do with politics than marketing. A nerve had been touched and the campaign built momentum as it dealt directly with women’s perceptions of their own beauty.
Lesson number two, according to Mr. Rothenberg, was the campaign continually sought to further innovation. New media elements were added, for example, with real time consumer surveys via cell phones. Results were displayed on billboards in selected locations.
“We were and are always reminding ourselves that the big ideas have to be media neutral,” Shelly Lazarus, chairman-CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, told Mr. Rothenberg. “Too many times, you automatically veer into a television script.”
Lesson number three is the campaign worked because it served as a vehicle for dialogue. As such, Dove needed to stake out a clear point of view on what is both a societal and political topic. Using online media as much as it did, the campaign was able to keep the dialogue focused in terms of its role in a public reflection than in its aim of driving Dove brand sales.
The last lesson was that playing it safe is a recipe for failure in modern marketing. Blogs on the “Real Beauty” site are not always complimentary. For instance, a mother objected to images of older women in the nude because she did not want her son to be able to view the material. Many others, however, connect with the acknowledgment that beauty comes in a variety of looks and attitudes.
Discussion Questions: What do you think are the most important lessons to be learned from the Dove Real Beauty campaign?
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The Dove campaign may get people to start thinking of beauty in different terms but does it get them to buy their products?
I think the campaign is unique. It especially promotes the fact that women are different shapes, sizes and ages, but beautiful.
I’m not buying the product as a result of the advertising. It didn’t convince me to do that.
There’s a few comments above I strongly disagree with, likely because I am the Dove target market and the men commenting simply can’t relate. Race, however, hit the nail on the head.
As a former agency girl, I adore this campaign above any that I have ever seen. Not only was the formula dead-on (at least in the US), but it immediately struck an emotionally charged bond with many, many women. Both myself and my circle of late thirty something friends are horrified that rather than getting more focused on inner beauty, the media and fashion community seems to be making it even more about the outer. Anorexic bodies, plastic surgery this and that, magazine photos and high-definition images retouched for “flawlessness”…it’s completely insane! We often chat about the fact that no woman alive appreciates it and we have no clue who’s driving it…yet, it continues and creates an illusion that’s damaging to society and the psyche of all women.
What did Dove do right? They became our voice and advocates and said enough is enough! Who cares if they’re trying to sell soap because they went beyond Plain Jane advertising and used all of that advertising money to send a REAL message!
My husband met one of the Dove campaign models last weekend, as she dates one of his clients and was in town for the weekend. Do you know how she was “discovered”? Attending a concert in Charlotte, NC. She’s a school teacher and was floored–and yet thrilled–to be approached out of the blue and asked to participate. She’s proud to show her students what it means to stand up for a message in society. This campaign was the real deal.
As far as if it motivated people to buy the product, I’ve become loyal to two of them and it’s directly related to this effort. I want to give my money to people who support this message and I could care less how much the product costs. Does everyone feel this way? No. But I’m sure enough did to make a serious blip in the sales radar.
There are two big lessons in my view. The first is integration. Dove achieved a truly integrated campaign, online, offline, print, outdoor. All the case studies say this is the way to move the needle. And, indeed, it does.
The second lesson is that they tapped into a new form developing on the internet. That is short-form video. The “makeover” webisode had tremendous viral uptake. Here’s the reason: There’s lots of video to be consumed on YouTube and other places. But most of it is silly humor and ridiculously amateurish. Dove entered the space and created a professional and compelling short-form video. It’s not really a commercial. It’s not really a show. It’s not an infomercial. It’s a new form, and I think we’ll see more of it.
Mark Lilien challenges the potential of marketing campaigns working globally. I guess I would question why programs related to aging gracefully wouldn’t be of interest to people worldwide, as well as the environment, healthy eating habits, or transportation woes. Seems like some human conditions would be universal and everyone, no matter what their culture, can understand them. I think that Dove was able to link into a universal concern, as well as used creative talent who spoke to a generation that it not usually put into commercials or on billboards. Similarly, I recently saw a commercial for a denture adhesive which used two senior citizens making out in the back of a taxi like a couple of teens. “One of these two wears dentures, but which one” was the question. The commercial spoke to the universal condition of getting older while attempting to stay young at heart.
Dove captured a moment in time and capitalized on the zeitgeist of reality TV, user generated content and used it to leverage the dissatisfaction women have with never feeling like they measure up. It was a brilliant play because it was legitimate positioning for their brand (middle class, mid-tier, not aspirational in the way that a high end beauty brand is) and it was first in the space. Brand authenticity is on their side–that’s what they did right–they understood their brand, their target and they leveraged the moment extremely well.
The Dove ads very simply say to me, “In an advertising world where most personal care ads feature well known actresses or size 3 girls under 25 years of age, we recognize there are many more others of you out there who do not fit that stereotypic demographic yet also buy things and want to look nice.”
Let’s be honest: first and foremost Dove wants to sell soap and lotion. Beyond that, whether the company’s ad campaign is designed for shock value/controversy, to encourage education/discussion, or to show respect and acknowledgment toward a group of usually ignored women, the Dove ads DO seem to stand out from among from the babble of other ads for similar products. And isn’t that what advertisers the world over hope to do?
I’ve often wondered if any terrifically talented creative team would ever semiotically discover the source of the “buzz” men feel when they fall in love with one of the wildly divergent choices among the fairer sex. Clearly they often see a kind of beauty in their paramours that is special, unique, and non-classic; and which goes unnoticed by others. What triggers some men to adore a specific woman while others hardly notice her?
May I submit that the Dove Real Beauty campaign may really be for men, not women? May I suggest that its purpose may be to remind men that it’s cool to see beauty (in a woman) that may not be on any published “beauty list?” And to remind men in extended relationships that there was something beautiful about their mates that took their breath away in the beginning and is still there if they’ll go looking for it? Key to this, of course, is that once a man has reminded himself, he must also remind her. Then she can use Dove products to celebrate her acceptance, not to gain or regain acceptance.
This can be a difficult question to answer, because it is easy to fall into the trap of feeling that one’s own point of view, whatever it is, has been vindicated by the Dove campaign.
I am afraid I may be falling into the same trap by saying that our general view of beauty appears to be terribly self-degrading–a very few body characteristics are viewed to be beautiful, the remaining thousands are viewed to be not beautiful. I believe it is difficult to feel good about yourself if you think you are not beautiful. What is so odd, however, is that having worked with a number of very famous models over the years, not a single one of them said they thought they were all that beautiful, either, deep down.
What this says to me is that almost universally, it appears none of us feel we are physically beautiful. Someone might say they feel “okay” with how they look, but I doubt it. I am not talking about easy-to-speak public statements, I am talking about the deepest feelings we have about ourselves.
I think the Dove campaign may have brought this problem slightly more to our attention, but I am not sure. I am not sure how “everyday” those Dove models really are, which leads me to wonder how much the campaign champions really believe in the idea that we are all beautiful. I would say that there appear to be a number of mixed messages in the Dove campaign, which may mirror our own schizophrenia about this whole topic, wanting to feel we are each beautiful, but not believing so for a second.
I think there’s a lot of over-thought in this article. Perhaps it is as simple as this: Dove engineered a campaign targeted toward a neglected market, with a message, medium and imagery inherently respectful and appropriate to that market. End of story.
I disagree with Mr. Rothenberg. First, retailing and marketing does NOT work globally. I am writing this letter from our China office where anyone who has traveled to Asia knows that the messages and positioning of most of our western products just doesn’t work the same. Although many western ideas can be massaged to western applications, even these don’t translate well. Gaps in language, culture and socio-economic shifts all contribute to the reasons why this doesn’t and hasn’t worked. Also, campaigns like Dove are the exception, because it has sought to educate the public, which any good marketing person knows is the most expensive way to market. Instead, a great marketing message simplifies and delivers a message which the public likes, and ultimately wants to hear. Finally, determining a campaign which serves as a dialog to others is a risky business. This is akin to personifying “cool.” It is difficult to identify, let alone capture. All in all, the author and I disagree on almost every proposition he has. Unfortunately for him, the Dove campaign is but a small exception, and a very westernized one at that. To react globally you must first think then present globally. Our efforts have yet to reach a global marketing playing field that is “level” around the world.
Most interesting: what Dove didn’t do. They didn’t use price. Instead, they used controversy to generate word of mouth. It’s neat to see a very old brand revitalized by creativity. How many other brands have allowed this degree of creativity? How many retailers have allowed it about themselves?
I think the real lesson in Dove’s marketing campaign is that big ideas, while more risky than the mediocre, can really pay off. Instead of going with the tried & true HBA aspirational approach of showing beautiful models, Dove sought to connect with their customers on a more authentic woman-to-woman level, using real women to tell the story. For a beauty brand, to not show “beauty” is a major marketing risk. Go too far and the whole campaign ends up positioning Dove as a brand for ugly ducklings…. Once the basic marketing concept was in place, congratulations to Ogilvy and Dove for allowing the campaign to be a “Real Beauty”: using interactive media so that real women could provide feedback & dialog was a key aspect of its success.
As Don mentioned, Dove has done what all brands should be doing: they committed to the front end with much research and consumer interaction in order to develop a campaign that resonated and evolved along the way, and then it was morphed to be appropriate for the various global cultures.
It is a bit unfortunate that the first hugely mass-media noticed/successful marketing to women effort was for a beauty product, because that may lead other traditional brands to wrongly believe that that counts them out; that for some reason, they could not approach women in a similar manner because their products aren’t so clearly women-specific. However, a lot can actually be learned from Dove for any industry. They took the “education”–not the hard-sell–approach, they invested a lot of time/money before launching and they were guided by the forms of media that would best reach their target (because they talked with their target)–not by those that might be most glamorous or produce a big initial bang, necessarily. They know it takes a lot for women to notice and then stick with a brand. They also know to continue to involve women in the process–inviting participation (making ads to commenting on blogs etc..) all along the way AND being willing to become vulnerable to negative comments too.
What was appealing about the Dove Real Beauty campaign was that every aspect of the initiative seemed very grassroots…very real. From the choice of models, to the use of social marketing, to the integration of philanthropy; every aspect of the campaign says “authentic,” and branding seemed to take a back seat.
What will now be interesting to watch is whether Dove can maintain that level of authenticity in the mind of the consumer. Can Dove continue to sell a believable message of “real beauty” if the consumer feels the realness is left behind for the sake of branding?
We are now hearing from some very reliable sources that Dove is conducting formal casting calls for models through modeling agencies versus searching for real, every day women. Interestingly, the casting call was a firm requirement for women size 7 or 9, not smaller or larger; and models were required to have plenty of wrinkles. This begs all the obvious questions…but in particular, has Dove already lost the realness of this campaign by now putting parameters on what “real beauty” is? Perhaps they need to go back and review their own strategy which is that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. Shouldn’t the campaign be broadened now to represent that–some smaller women, some larger, some wrinkled, some not etc.? My own take on this is that Dove needs to tread very carefully with this campaign as they move forward.
One of the big lessons I take from the Dove campaign is to remember that consumers are multidimensional, dynamic, and nuanced. In the retail world where customer segmentations often read like one-dimensional stereotypes, the Dove campaign is a good reminder that taking the time to understand the nuances of a particular group can open up entirely new avenues to connect with them.
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The Dove campaign may get people to start thinking of beauty in different terms but does it get them to buy their products?
I think the campaign is unique. It especially promotes the fact that women are different shapes, sizes and ages, but beautiful.
I’m not buying the product as a result of the advertising. It didn’t convince me to do that.
There’s a few comments above I strongly disagree with, likely because I am the Dove target market and the men commenting simply can’t relate. Race, however, hit the nail on the head.
As a former agency girl, I adore this campaign above any that I have ever seen. Not only was the formula dead-on (at least in the US), but it immediately struck an emotionally charged bond with many, many women. Both myself and my circle of late thirty something friends are horrified that rather than getting more focused on inner beauty, the media and fashion community seems to be making it even more about the outer. Anorexic bodies, plastic surgery this and that, magazine photos and high-definition images retouched for “flawlessness”…it’s completely insane! We often chat about the fact that no woman alive appreciates it and we have no clue who’s driving it…yet, it continues and creates an illusion that’s damaging to society and the psyche of all women.
What did Dove do right? They became our voice and advocates and said enough is enough! Who cares if they’re trying to sell soap because they went beyond Plain Jane advertising and used all of that advertising money to send a REAL message!
My husband met one of the Dove campaign models last weekend, as she dates one of his clients and was in town for the weekend. Do you know how she was “discovered”? Attending a concert in Charlotte, NC. She’s a school teacher and was floored–and yet thrilled–to be approached out of the blue and asked to participate. She’s proud to show her students what it means to stand up for a message in society. This campaign was the real deal.
As far as if it motivated people to buy the product, I’ve become loyal to two of them and it’s directly related to this effort. I want to give my money to people who support this message and I could care less how much the product costs. Does everyone feel this way? No. But I’m sure enough did to make a serious blip in the sales radar.
There are two big lessons in my view. The first is integration. Dove achieved a truly integrated campaign, online, offline, print, outdoor. All the case studies say this is the way to move the needle. And, indeed, it does.
The second lesson is that they tapped into a new form developing on the internet. That is short-form video. The “makeover” webisode had tremendous viral uptake. Here’s the reason: There’s lots of video to be consumed on YouTube and other places. But most of it is silly humor and ridiculously amateurish. Dove entered the space and created a professional and compelling short-form video. It’s not really a commercial. It’s not really a show. It’s not an infomercial. It’s a new form, and I think we’ll see more of it.
Mark Lilien challenges the potential of marketing campaigns working globally. I guess I would question why programs related to aging gracefully wouldn’t be of interest to people worldwide, as well as the environment, healthy eating habits, or transportation woes. Seems like some human conditions would be universal and everyone, no matter what their culture, can understand them. I think that Dove was able to link into a universal concern, as well as used creative talent who spoke to a generation that it not usually put into commercials or on billboards. Similarly, I recently saw a commercial for a denture adhesive which used two senior citizens making out in the back of a taxi like a couple of teens. “One of these two wears dentures, but which one” was the question. The commercial spoke to the universal condition of getting older while attempting to stay young at heart.
Dove captured a moment in time and capitalized on the zeitgeist of reality TV, user generated content and used it to leverage the dissatisfaction women have with never feeling like they measure up. It was a brilliant play because it was legitimate positioning for their brand (middle class, mid-tier, not aspirational in the way that a high end beauty brand is) and it was first in the space. Brand authenticity is on their side–that’s what they did right–they understood their brand, their target and they leveraged the moment extremely well.
The Dove ads very simply say to me, “In an advertising world where most personal care ads feature well known actresses or size 3 girls under 25 years of age, we recognize there are many more others of you out there who do not fit that stereotypic demographic yet also buy things and want to look nice.”
Let’s be honest: first and foremost Dove wants to sell soap and lotion. Beyond that, whether the company’s ad campaign is designed for shock value/controversy, to encourage education/discussion, or to show respect and acknowledgment toward a group of usually ignored women, the Dove ads DO seem to stand out from among from the babble of other ads for similar products. And isn’t that what advertisers the world over hope to do?
I’ve often wondered if any terrifically talented creative team would ever semiotically discover the source of the “buzz” men feel when they fall in love with one of the wildly divergent choices among the fairer sex. Clearly they often see a kind of beauty in their paramours that is special, unique, and non-classic; and which goes unnoticed by others. What triggers some men to adore a specific woman while others hardly notice her?
May I submit that the Dove Real Beauty campaign may really be for men, not women? May I suggest that its purpose may be to remind men that it’s cool to see beauty (in a woman) that may not be on any published “beauty list?” And to remind men in extended relationships that there was something beautiful about their mates that took their breath away in the beginning and is still there if they’ll go looking for it? Key to this, of course, is that once a man has reminded himself, he must also remind her. Then she can use Dove products to celebrate her acceptance, not to gain or regain acceptance.
This can be a difficult question to answer, because it is easy to fall into the trap of feeling that one’s own point of view, whatever it is, has been vindicated by the Dove campaign.
I am afraid I may be falling into the same trap by saying that our general view of beauty appears to be terribly self-degrading–a very few body characteristics are viewed to be beautiful, the remaining thousands are viewed to be not beautiful. I believe it is difficult to feel good about yourself if you think you are not beautiful. What is so odd, however, is that having worked with a number of very famous models over the years, not a single one of them said they thought they were all that beautiful, either, deep down.
What this says to me is that almost universally, it appears none of us feel we are physically beautiful. Someone might say they feel “okay” with how they look, but I doubt it. I am not talking about easy-to-speak public statements, I am talking about the deepest feelings we have about ourselves.
I think the Dove campaign may have brought this problem slightly more to our attention, but I am not sure. I am not sure how “everyday” those Dove models really are, which leads me to wonder how much the campaign champions really believe in the idea that we are all beautiful. I would say that there appear to be a number of mixed messages in the Dove campaign, which may mirror our own schizophrenia about this whole topic, wanting to feel we are each beautiful, but not believing so for a second.
I think there’s a lot of over-thought in this article. Perhaps it is as simple as this: Dove engineered a campaign targeted toward a neglected market, with a message, medium and imagery inherently respectful and appropriate to that market. End of story.
I disagree with Mr. Rothenberg. First, retailing and marketing does NOT work globally. I am writing this letter from our China office where anyone who has traveled to Asia knows that the messages and positioning of most of our western products just doesn’t work the same. Although many western ideas can be massaged to western applications, even these don’t translate well. Gaps in language, culture and socio-economic shifts all contribute to the reasons why this doesn’t and hasn’t worked. Also, campaigns like Dove are the exception, because it has sought to educate the public, which any good marketing person knows is the most expensive way to market. Instead, a great marketing message simplifies and delivers a message which the public likes, and ultimately wants to hear. Finally, determining a campaign which serves as a dialog to others is a risky business. This is akin to personifying “cool.” It is difficult to identify, let alone capture. All in all, the author and I disagree on almost every proposition he has. Unfortunately for him, the Dove campaign is but a small exception, and a very westernized one at that. To react globally you must first think then present globally. Our efforts have yet to reach a global marketing playing field that is “level” around the world.
Most interesting: what Dove didn’t do. They didn’t use price. Instead, they used controversy to generate word of mouth. It’s neat to see a very old brand revitalized by creativity. How many other brands have allowed this degree of creativity? How many retailers have allowed it about themselves?
I think the real lesson in Dove’s marketing campaign is that big ideas, while more risky than the mediocre, can really pay off. Instead of going with the tried & true HBA aspirational approach of showing beautiful models, Dove sought to connect with their customers on a more authentic woman-to-woman level, using real women to tell the story. For a beauty brand, to not show “beauty” is a major marketing risk. Go too far and the whole campaign ends up positioning Dove as a brand for ugly ducklings…. Once the basic marketing concept was in place, congratulations to Ogilvy and Dove for allowing the campaign to be a “Real Beauty”: using interactive media so that real women could provide feedback & dialog was a key aspect of its success.
As Don mentioned, Dove has done what all brands should be doing: they committed to the front end with much research and consumer interaction in order to develop a campaign that resonated and evolved along the way, and then it was morphed to be appropriate for the various global cultures.
It is a bit unfortunate that the first hugely mass-media noticed/successful marketing to women effort was for a beauty product, because that may lead other traditional brands to wrongly believe that that counts them out; that for some reason, they could not approach women in a similar manner because their products aren’t so clearly women-specific. However, a lot can actually be learned from Dove for any industry. They took the “education”–not the hard-sell–approach, they invested a lot of time/money before launching and they were guided by the forms of media that would best reach their target (because they talked with their target)–not by those that might be most glamorous or produce a big initial bang, necessarily. They know it takes a lot for women to notice and then stick with a brand. They also know to continue to involve women in the process–inviting participation (making ads to commenting on blogs etc..) all along the way AND being willing to become vulnerable to negative comments too.
What was appealing about the Dove Real Beauty campaign was that every aspect of the initiative seemed very grassroots…very real. From the choice of models, to the use of social marketing, to the integration of philanthropy; every aspect of the campaign says “authentic,” and branding seemed to take a back seat.
What will now be interesting to watch is whether Dove can maintain that level of authenticity in the mind of the consumer. Can Dove continue to sell a believable message of “real beauty” if the consumer feels the realness is left behind for the sake of branding?
We are now hearing from some very reliable sources that Dove is conducting formal casting calls for models through modeling agencies versus searching for real, every day women. Interestingly, the casting call was a firm requirement for women size 7 or 9, not smaller or larger; and models were required to have plenty of wrinkles. This begs all the obvious questions…but in particular, has Dove already lost the realness of this campaign by now putting parameters on what “real beauty” is? Perhaps they need to go back and review their own strategy which is that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. Shouldn’t the campaign be broadened now to represent that–some smaller women, some larger, some wrinkled, some not etc.? My own take on this is that Dove needs to tread very carefully with this campaign as they move forward.
One of the big lessons I take from the Dove campaign is to remember that consumers are multidimensional, dynamic, and nuanced. In the retail world where customer segmentations often read like one-dimensional stereotypes, the Dove campaign is a good reminder that taking the time to understand the nuances of a particular group can open up entirely new avenues to connect with them.