Doing it Right - Dove Real Beauty Campaign

The very recent Dove Real Beauty Sketches have brought back the focus on the successful use of cause-related marketing employed by Dove in past. This post concentrates upon the marketing strategy with respect to the brand building exercise which Dove has undertaken in the past few years, while leaving out discussion on the ethical entangles due to brand building philosophy of another peer brand (Axe) under the HUL’s house of brands for another post, another day.

 Dove’s vision statement– ‘Imagine a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety’, very subtly defines the brand essence which is to make beauty a strength for women rather than a source of anxiety and discomfort.

The brand building for Dove has shaped into a unique way of cause-related marketing technique. Though like a typical cause-related marketing campaign, the campaign started in collaboration with a non-profit party (Girls Scout in US in 2002) for a social cause, the campaign has gone past to be a global one attempting to brew self-esteem and confidence among women of all ages about the way they look. The basic theme of all the campaigns is to be natural in the way one looks and be confident about it. The campaign tries to break myths of stereotypical beauty which are created to instil insecurities among women about the way they look thereby promoting products and services to achieve that desired form of beauty.

The brand building for Dove has always been around the concept of real beauty and how it must be preserved. This, in turn emphasize and restore the brand promise of nurturing and nourishing the natural beauty and not trying to manipulate it. By reinforcing the significance of originality and individuality in beauty, the brand successfully presents itself as an avant-garde to offer the core and augmented benefits which are desired to achieve the aforesaid.

The brand achieves this by breaking the traditionally created stereotypes of beauty and beautiful women. It involves women of all ages, colours, ethnicity and body-types in its campaign making the campaign as inclusive as possible. The campaign propagates the emotional aspect of how important it is to be oneself while believing, that they are beautiful in the way they are.

The most interesting and intelligent part of the cause-related marketing done by Dove is the cause picked up. Most of the times, companies and brands fail to choose the cause which aids them in propagating the brand’s vision and promise to the audience while it piggy-rides on the cause itself. These brands and companies though may get attention due to the noble cause they are associated with, but it does not help the brand to reinforce its brand proposition since the audience and TG fail to connect the cause with the product/brand. This leads to a loss of a significant brand building opportunity.

Dove picked up the concept of natural beauty to build its cause-related marketing campaign. By presenting its resolve to enhance self-esteem among women of all ages and make them feel comfortable in their own skin, it has ensured that there is a huge customer base which is not only loyal to the brand but also loyal to what the brand stands for – self esteem and confidence in being what you naturally are.

Some of the interesting campaigns which Dove has launched are as follows. Click on the link to watch videos –

Evolution

Dove shows how entertainment industry creates a stereotypical image of beauty by thousands of manipulations. It creates how such beauty benchmarks create pressure upon women to adopt ways in order to look beautiful in the way these companies projects beauty to be.

Beauty Pressure

This was a widely-appreciated ad which shows how girls at an age of as early as 8 can fall prey to aggressive marketing by companies whose only objective is to create high-standards for beauty and then offering product and services to women in order to meet those standards. The ad clearly warns the mothers to talk to their daughters before these companies do.

The latest campaign launched by Dove in this regard is the Dove Real Beauty Sketches. Dove with its research claims that only 4% of women consider themselves beautiful. In order to break this self-assumed myth, Dove conducted an experiment to prove to women that – “You are more beautiful than you think”.

Watch the ad-video here. Dove Real Beauty Sketeches

Hence, the overall brand building strategies that Dove adopted over the years has proved to be of benefit not only to the brand but also to the cause. This was due to multiple reasons like right selection of the cause for building campaign, consistent brand promise, high level of inclusion and most importantly a product range that lends to the credibility of the brand proposition.

Cheers,