Introduction

Dove is a personal care brand which is owned by Unilever. It has become a very popular household product used by millions of women across the world because of its successful marketing campaigns which are way beyond just beauty. It has helped women to recognise their internal beauty which cannot be washed away easily.

The brand values of dove centres around self-love. Self-confidence and real beauty within. Dove has managed to live up to its brand values with its strong marketing campaigns like the Self-esteem project and the Real beauty campaign. This has helped Dove to be unique among its competitors and at the same time have brand awareness

What is Dove?

Dove is a personal care brand with a diverse range of products for men, women, and babies and distribution to over 150 countries across the world. It was started by American Chemist Vincent Lamberti. It is an iconic brand that has gone out of its comfort zone to promote its product. Most of the Dove campaigns revolve around the subject matter of self-confidence, self-esteem, and being your real self.

Recently dove has come up with new ways of marketing and emotional advertising to reach millions of women on a personal level. What it has done to become one of the iconic brands, we will deep dive into the marketing campaign of Dove in this article.

How Dove does market?

Since the beauty sector is highly competitive it needs creative and out of box campaigns to stay in the market. It has been able to stand tall even today due to its unique marketing strategies. The marketing strategies of Dove involve both smart and emotional touchpoints to reach its customer. The target audience of Dove is women from the age group of 20 – 35. 

Initially, Dove grabbed the attention of the audience for its soap product as it not only washes but moisturises the skin as well, which was different from its competitors’ products. Later, unlike its competitors who used celebrities for advertisements Dove used regular women in their campaign instead of professional models to reach out to women.

Even today dove is successful among customers due to its empathetic marketing strategy. With the help of campaigns, Dove addresses the larger issues of low self-esteem, body shaming, and inclusivity among different age groups of women and raises the brand bar high which is difficult to match by any other competitor brand.

Top Marketing Campaigns by Dove 

Marketing campaign of Dove has revolved around emotional appeal and social causes. Because of its unique marketing techniques, it has been able to stay relevant today. Let us discuss 7 Dove’s advertising campaigns that stole millions of hearts.

#Choosebeautiful

The campaign was launched to help women around the world embrace their true selves. A survey was conducted with huge sign boards outside shopping centres to know how women see themselves. Women were faced with 2 banners on each side, one contained the word “Beautiful” while the other read “ Average”. 

Some women confidently entered through the “Beautiful” while most others entered through the “Average” door. 96% of the women did not choose the beautiful door while 80% believed that they have something beautiful about themselves. The main objective of the campaign was to enable women to make choices that make them feel beautiful about themselves.

To make a video, intense research was conducted, 5 women from different countries were interviewed to know how the culture of those countries influences their decision on buying beauty products for themselves.

#Realbeauty

The campaign was launched in 2004 with the main objective of educating women about the meaning of real beauty. Billboard advertisements were displayed everywhere with pictures of regular women instead of professional models. Messages were sent inviting viewers to vote on whether a woman was “Fat or Fab” or “Withered or Wonderful” with the results to be displayed on the billboards.

Adding to this FBE- trained Forsenic artist Gil Zamora made two sketches. The first one was described by the woman herself and the other was described by someone else. A revelation was made that the picture described by the other person was a happier and better one.

This made women realise that they are much more than what they think about themselves. Post this campaign sales went from $2.5 to $4 billion within ten years.

#Ad makeover

Extensive research was conducted to find the ads with negative connotations like I hate my body, plastic surgery, bikini, gym, and diet. The objective was to replace these words with positive ones to restore the feeling of self-love. Soon after this, no ads with negative impact were displayed, instead, the ads with positive words were used.

In no time these ads went viral on Facebook, making them a huge success. It managed to reach 5.5 million women users, as 171 million positive banners were replaced over for years. It was a winning campaign as the message of self-love was well conveyed to women around the world.

 #DetoxYourFeed

The campaign was launched to educate young people on how social media largely impacts one’s self-esteem. The young generation is spending most of their time on social media which provides negative advice about beauty. Thus with this campaign one gets to see videos and educational guidelines which help to boost self-confidence and overcome anxiety and stress caused by online media.

A short video is also made to teach Parents and caregivers how they can educate their children about the harmful effects of social media. A virtual event was also organised with a psychotherapist to discuss the crucial topic.

#Stop The Beauty Test

How many women in our country choose a career to get settled well in life?

I guess every 8 in 10 women opt for career options to get married. Not only this society also tells women how they should behave, dress and look to find a life partner. This campaign was launched with the main criteria to urge women to believe in themselves and restore their self-esteem.

 A full-page print ad in newspapers was launched by the brand requesting women to change the meaning of beauty and take the pledge to #StopTheBeautyTest. One of the main reasons why this campaign was successful was because of the right timing to launch it on Daughter’s day. The apt timing was appreciated by everyone with the brands’ main aim to aid self-confidence and self-love among women.

#Show Us

In 2019 Dove Partnered with Getty images to create the world’s largest photo library. This photo library was mainly created by women who wanted to bring about radical changes in the sphere and meaning of what real beauty was.

The campaign stood out and also won the canner silver Glass award in 2019. Because of this campaign, many women around the world joined the campaign as a result of which 500 images of 179 women from various countries were featured. It was photographed by 116 female and non-binary photographers.

#No Digital Distortion

Though the advancement of technology is helping us in various areas of life but at the same time it is taking us away from reality. One such aspect of social media platforms is the filter option which one can use to beautify oneself or the beauty apps which are used to make us look different from what we are. This has greatly impacted the self-esteem of many young girls who want to fit into the box. 

This is where Dove stepped in with the campaign #No Digital Distortion campaign. With the launch of this campaign, dove wants to convey the message to women around the world that they are beautiful as they are.

According to the Global Beauty and Confidence Report,69% of women say the pressure to reach those impossible standards, makes them feel anxious about their appearance. This campaign used print media, social media platforms, and banners to spread the message.

Conclusion

The brand has managed to remain on top of the game in the beauty industry despite tough competition. This has been possible only because of the thoughtful marketing strategies used by the brand where it showed deep concern for people and not just wanted to sell its product.

 It has helped many women across the globe change the way they think of beauty, make them feel good about themselves, and accept themselves the way they are. With its unique campaign,  it empowers women everywhere.