Harvard Business School Case Study | Evolution of the Brand : Dove

Evolution of a Brand
Symbiosis Institute of Business
Management, Bengaluru
1

Unilever
 Formed in 1930
 Anglo-Dutch merger between Lever Brothers and
Margarine Unie
Headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands and London,
United Kingdom
3rd
largest Consumer products company in the world
after P&G and Nestle
 Unilever operated in every continent and had particular
strengths in India, Africa, Latin America and Southeast
Asia
2

By 1980:
 Reduced Palm Oil Dependence
 Globalized market
Later:
 Global Decentralization
 Brand portfolio grew in laissez-faire manner
3

By 2000:
More than 1600 brands
Problem of control
No unified global identity
February 2000:
5 year strategic plan
“Path to Growth”
1600 brands
400 brands
Some of them
“Masterbrands”
Own Global Brand Unit
4

Evolution of Brand “Dove”
5

1957: Launched in market
The 1957 launch advertising campaign for Dove was
created by the Ogilvy and Mather advertising agency.
The message was, “Dove soap doesn’t dry your skin
because it’s one quarter cleansing cream.”
6

1970’s: Popularity increased as
milder soap
The term “cleansing cream” was replaced by
“moisturizing cream” – but Dove stayed with the
claim not to dry skin, and the refusal to call itself
a soap, for over 40 years.
7

2000: Pre-Campaign
Silvia Lagnado, global brand director of Dove, led a
worldwide investigation into women’s responses to
the iconography of the beauty industry to find a new
brand definition.
8

Pre-Campaign Survey
 “Young, white,
blonde and thin” –
unattainable
standards for
general women
 Taunted by ads
featuring beauty
icons
9

Pre-Campaign Survey
Unilever survey results of 3000 women in 10 countries
Result:
Only 2% of respondents worldwide chose to describe themselves as
beautiful
10

11

2005: New Brand Definition
More Women Feeling Beautiful
12

Campaign For Real Beauty
 In September 29, 2004, Dove launched
“Campaign for Real Beauty”
 The ad campaign was designed by Ogilvy &
Mather
 The PR was handled by Edelman
 Raise Consciousness of the issues surrounding
beauties
 Purpose was to challenge the stereotypes set by
the beauty industry
 Intended to make more women feel beautiful
everyday.
13

 Release Of a Global Academic Research Study
That Explores The Relationship That Women From
Around The World Have With Beauty And its Links
To Their Happiness And Well-Being
 Advertising That Inspires Women And Society To
Think Differently About What Is Defined As
Beautiful.
 Fundraising Initiatives (Sponsored by the DOVE
SELF-ESTEEM FUND) To Help Young Girls With
Low Body-Related Self Esteem.
14
Campaign For Real Beauty

EVERY WOMEN HAS SOMETHING
BEAUTIFUL ABOUT HER
68% agree with the fact that unrealistic
standards of beauty exist in the media &
advertisement world.
47% agreed that only attractive women are
portrayed in popular cultures.
Over 85% believed that beauty could be
achieved through attitude & spirit.
15

WHY CFRB??
Real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages
 Declining Sales - lost in crowded market
 Increased competition
 Advertising clutter
 Stagnation in one or two categories - In spite of increase in
product range
 Need for Brand Positioning - Evolve brand image without
losing their existing customer base and driving aggressive
growth
16

Change
the idea of beauty
In 4 stages of
advertisements
Start of the Campaign
17

Stage 1: TICK-BOX billboards
Campaign
In this campaign, billboards were erected and viewers
were asked to phone and vote on whether a woman on
the billboard was “outsized” or “outstanding”. A counter
on the billboard showed the votes in real time.
18

Stage 2: Firming Campaign
This campaign featured six “real” women cheerfully
posing. The aim was to “change the way society views
beauty,” and “provoke discussion and debate about
real beauty.” Functional Benefit: Skin firming cream
19

Stage 3: Executive’s daughters
discussing their self esteem
challenges
20

Stage 4: Film – “Evolution”
112-second film, popularized on YouTube. It
showed the face of a young woman as
cosmetics, hair styling and Photoshop editing
transformed it from plainness to billboard
glamour.
21

Strengths
o Unconventional strategy
o Effective advertising, Free publicity
o Continuously evolving the campaign
o Strong emotional touch
o Cross-selling Possibilities
Weaknesses/Criticism
oContradictory in nature
oObjectification of women
oWomen featured were comparatively slim
oUse of idealized images in other brands
under the same flagship
oContradictory Japanese campaign
Opportunity Recommendation
oTarget male customers
oMaintain better standards of quality
oUnified advertising throughout the globe
oContinuous innovation
Threats
oRisk of being a brand for “fat girls”
oInvolved marketing risk
oCopy by the competitors
oUndermining the aspiration of consumers
oSustainability of campaign in long run
SWOT Analysis

Consumer Point of View
Real Ads by Real Women Contest, to invite
consumers to create their own ads for Dove
Cream Oil Body Wash
23

Media Planning
 Bought every billboard in Grand Central Station for
CFRB promotions
 Showcased ‘Hates Her Freckles’ ad in the Superbowl
match
 Evolution ad released only on Youtube
 All these media planning activities created a lot of
buzz in the market
24

Public Relation
Unilever established
the global Dove Self-
Esteem Fund to raise
the self esteem of girls
and young women
25

Brand Management
 Unilever had organized the work of marketing in a manner
similar to its main competitor, Procter & Gamble, known as the
brand management system.
 Within a product category the form often offered multiple
brands, each led by a brand manager.
 In effect, each brand operated as a separate business,
competing with its siblings as well as the products of other
firms.
 Under Path to Growth, Brand Management was split into two
groups:
1. Brand Development
2. Brand Building
26

 Dove in top 10 brands in health and business value
 Sales of firming lotion in UK rose by 700%
 Sales in the US went up by 11.4%
 Revenues for 2005 - (39.67 billion & employed 206,000)
 Firming Lotion sales 1st
six months 2004- 2.3 million bottles
 Total Sales for the Dove Brand rose 6%
 No. of visitors to website increased by 200%
 Grand EFFIE award for advertising effectiveness(M & O)
 Silver Anvil Award for PR (Edelman)
Success
Growth of $1.2 billion
27

Criticism
• No strong connection between ads and Dove products
• People may question Dove’s socially responsible image; Is
it real?
• Limits their future marketing campaigns
• Focused too much on the cause and not on the product
• Hypocrisy of criticizing beauty industry and selling beauty
products
28

Our Perspective
• They featured real women in their campaign as models were
too perfect for most women to aspire for. Also they realized
images of models and supermodels left the consumers feel bad
about their own body image and hurt their self-esteem.
• They broaden the definition of “ beauty”
• They use effective ways of campaigning.
• The CFRB website had various tools that helped bolster self-
esteem of the young girls.
• In all these ways they grabbed the attention of the customers.
• The campaign was quite different from the conventional
approach in the beauty industry.
• Also free publicity was given
• It broke the rule of the advertising business that “ only
beautiful models sell”
29

Thank You!
30

Harvard Business School Case Study | Evolution of the Brand : Dove

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Harvard Business School Case Study | Evolution of the Brand : Dove