Excellent Marketing Initiatives of Dove by Unilever

Introduction

Businesses have understood that the only way to stand out in today’s competitive era is not through price and product innovation but through customer relations, or customer bonding. Every day, new companies enter the market with better products and prices.

Thousands of Skincare brands are available in the market, and all of them promise users similar benefits; however, Dove is a brand that has managed to get connected with its customers quite easily right from the start. Dove is not just a brand that provides skincare; it is a brand that cares about its customers and their skin. Let’s understand what Dove did right in the market.

In this article, we will be diving deep into the excellent marketing initiatives of Dove by Unilever and the birth and growth trajectory of Dove. This information will help us understand how skincare brands have changed over the years.

Brief Introduction to Unilever

Image 1 − Unilever text logo

Unilever as a company, was a partnership formed by the Lever brothers. Unilever as a brand has made various acquisitions and has invested heavily in the research and development of its products from the very start. Unilever cares about its employees and the community at large, and through its products and services, it wants to make the community a better place and the lives of its customers easier. During the Second World War, Unilever started recruiting everyone who came back from the war. Today, Unilever as a brand is present in the food industry, the home care industry, and the skin care industry.

There are several brands and product lines under Unilever that dominate the market, and some of them are as listed here.

• Axe

• Dove

• Pears

• Life Bouy

• Vim

• Horlicks

• Ben & Jerry

• Comfort, and many others.

The Birth and Growth Trajectory of Dove

Dove originated on United Nations soil in 1957. Dove is a brand of Unilever that focuses on feminine skin care products. Dove focused on providing customers with soap or beauty bars that are not only going to cleanse the skin but also provide its smoothness. Dove, as a brand, focuses on enhancing the beauty and feeling that every skin type, color, size, and texture is beautiful.

Dove, along with the beauty bars, provides its customers with other skincare items like shampoo, conditioners, body cream, lotion, face cream, deodorant rollers, moisturizers, and others.

Image 2 − Dove products - shower gel, shampoo, body milk, soap, hand cream with coconut milk.

Successful Marketing Initiatives of Dove by Unilever

Benefits of Dove Product Usage

Dove started its marketing campaign by highlighting the product difference between Dove’s beauty bar and other beauty bars. Dove understood that the other beauty bars were hard and tough on the skin, and applying the soap would clean the face but at the same time make the entire skin look dry and deprived of moisture; hence, Dove came up with its own beauty bars that have 1/4th of the moisture. The beauty bars no longer just cleansed the face but also provided it with the required moisture.

Real Beauty Campaign

In 2003, Dove came up with the Real Beauty marketing campaign, leaving behind the 1/4th moisturizing campaign by Dove. The real beauty marketing campaign is divided into three parts. The campaign is supported by a survey that found that only 45% of women all around the world felt that they were beautiful. Dove believed in individual beauty and real beauty and started the campaign.

In the first part, Dove featured a lot of non-traditional models, and the viewers online were asked to rate these models. Options for rating were "wonderful or wrinkled", "oversized or outstanding", and others.

In the second phase, Dove featured curvy and full-bodied women through candid and confident images. Once again, Dove challenged the stereotype of beauty and what an ideal female looks like. In the third phase, known as the "pro-aged," Dove featured old, naked women in their advertisements and asked questions like "Does beauty have any age limit?" The marketing campaign not only created public relations buzz but also instilled in the customers a positive feeling regarding the brand, its product, and Dove’s perspective towards beauty.

‘The Dove Test’ Marketing Campaign

Dove has been using this marketing campaign for years. In this campaign, Dove fights with the Potter Beauty Bar by making the general population go through the test. In this test, in half of the places, the other soap is applied, and in the other half, the dove is applied. After cleaning their face, women are asked to share their experiences and how they feel after using both products, and it is not surprising that women choose Dove over the other brands because of its moisturizing element.

Documentary and Funds by Dove

Dove understood that advertisements are not the only way; if they have to fight the beauty stereotypes, they have to expand their wings and work horizons, and hence Dove came up with Esteem funds to help women feel better about themselves and restore their self-confidence.

Dove sponsored various documentaries related to beauty and serotonin. In one such advertisement, a mediocre woman as per the beauty standards was transformed with the help of makeup, hairdressing, dress, lighting, and others into a supermodel in one of the billboards. The movie ended with the tagline, "No wonder our perception of beauty is so distorted". The documentary won many hearts.

Another documentary named "Sketches" was a simple and very impactful documentary. A woman behind the curtain was asked to describe herself to the sketch artist, and again, the same woman was described by a total stranger to the sketch artist. Both the portraits had huge differences, and the tagline of the documentary, or the message, was "You are more beautiful than you think," showing how women are the worst critics of themselves and their beauty. The documentary had more than 175 million views in a month.

Conclusion

Dove as a brand is coming up with more such marketing solutions every day. Dove wants to hold a position in the brand race as someone who cares for its customers, and what they think about themselves, and someone who appreciates and celebrates real beauty. Ad Makeover and more such documentaries are always released by Dove, and the brand gains a lot of controversies as well as appreciation from the viewers. Dove, as a brand, is firm on bringing in change.