PM Dove Case Study - Final
PM Dove Case Study - Final
PM Dove Case Study - Final
• Working under the “Campaign for Real Beauty” banner posses a risk in moving the
brand to a position that was at odds with its heritage
• Debunking the beauty myth might bring with it the danger that the brand is
debunking the whole reason to spend such extensive amount for the product
• Are consumers going to be inspired by a product that doesn’t promise to take them to
a new level of attractiveness?
• While talking about the real beauty, does the aspirational element gets lost?
• Unattainable beauty was the best marketing strategy by the beauty brands so far but
Dove’s advertising strategy of promoting the real beauty appears ironic
Case Facts (Industry & Competition)
Industry Competition
• Will the controversies faced by dove during the • Evolution from brand’s functional benefits to a
different stages of “Campaign for Real beauty” unique point of view- “Campaign for Real
help in enhancing its brand image? beauty”
• Will the new mission statement of Dove lead to • Leadership team portraying the executive’s
increase in its revenue? daughters’ self-esteem challenges
• Is the new strategy of brand development and • Involving different media channels to cater to
brand building effective? larger audiences
Product – World’s number one Buyer characteristics – The Dove’s campaign for real beauty was a
“cleansing brand” in health and beauty Dove products mainly cater to huge success and in Sept 2006, Dove was
sector; product mix includes cleansing women of ages 14 and above identified as 1 of 10 brands with the
bars, body washes, hand washes, face belonging to mid to mid-upper greatest percentage gain in brand health &
care, hair care, deodorants, anti- income groups who believe in business value in the past 3 years. The
perspirants, and body lotions healthful beauty. campaign had touched a nerve with the
Price – Sales of over $2.5 billion in Buyer Decision Process - public and thousands of blogs and Internet
2007, the prices are kept affordable • Dove’s campaign of chat forums showed a rich diversity of
promoting “real beauty” was public dialog.
keeping in mind the target segment of
mid-upper income groups catered for women dissatisfied
Place – Sales in more than 80 countries; with the traditional setup.
operated in every continent with • New and unconventional
particular strengths in India, Africa, ideas were used for ad
campaigns including paid and
Latin America, and Southeast Asia
unpaid, blitz and social media.
Promotion – “The Campaign for Real • While Dove’s competitors
Beauty” aimed to change the way projected unachievable ideas
society views beauty and provoke of beauty, Dove shone out like
discussions about real beauty; featured the brand for real women.
“real” women in their ads
SWOT Analysis - Dove
Strengths: Weakness:
• Unconventional strategy • Ads are contradictory to their business idea/revenue
• Effective advertising, Free publicity strategy
• Positive social impact • Use of idealized images in other brands under the same
• Promotes individual empowerment flagship
• Helping women to raise their self-esteem • Lack of support from management
• Strong emotional touch • Fear of Media Backlash
Opportunities: Threats:
• Target female customers at an emotional level • Strategy backfire as people might take offense
• New opportunity to target male customer too • Customers might not get inspired as the brand doesn’t offer
• Continuous campaign evolution new level of attractiveness
• Scope of Innovation through Brand Development & Brand
Building
Conclusion
• Being selected by Unilever as a “Masterbrand”, Dove aims to be a brand with a point of view shifting from
its initial strategy of being a functional brand. This provides Dove an opportunity to expand its product
portfolio.
• With the brand team taking a second look at the cliches of the industry, the “campaign for real beauty” could
be unfolded,
i. In September 2006, Landor Associates identified Dove as one of 10 brands with the greatest percentage
gain in brand health and business value in the past three years. It computed that the brand had grown by
$1.2 billion.
ii. Much of the growth was attributable to its extension into new personal care categories
iii. It was evident that the campaign had touched a nerve with the public. Thousands of blogs and Internet
chat forums showed a rich diversity of public dialogue
• By addressing the issue of low self-esteem, and conducting events like the one conducted during the 2005
Superbowl, Unilever raised Dove to the level of a crusade against false impressions of beauty and raised
awareness regarding the physical and mental health of women globally.
• The execution and message of the campaign by Dove seem to be most important drivers for
consumers to engage in actions compared to buying activation, for which brand fit is more
important than the execution and message for the primary target group of role models and models
all three components are important, and especially the fit with the brand. For the secondary target
– the ones that need to be influenced by are much activated in the buying process by the execution,
less by the brand and not at all by the message.
• Most significant of all its maneuvers during the spread of “The Campaign for Real Beauty” was
the choice to create the Dove Self-Esteem Fund, a global organization that has been dedicated to
redefining beauty in the real world and improving the self-esteem of young girls
• Letting the public pick at and contribute to a marketing campaign removes some of the control
from the strategists but disruption attracts attention even when it lacks substance and there is a
powerful substance in the Dove campaign that makes it almost subversive
• We may conclude that a beauty brand that challenged the existing conventions and alternative
images of beauty and women is quite unusual and even revolutionary
Group 3 – PGDM IB-A
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