Dove Case Review

Question 1.) “For too long, beauty has been defined by narrow, stifling stereotypes,” said Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty website. “Women have told us it’s time to change all that. Dove agrees. We believe real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages.” Before Dove’s campaign, people get tired of seeing the sexual icons, model type pictures of women bedecked the posters, billboards, TV ads and etc. However Dove brought a new understanding of ‘self-esteem’ and made a revolutionary act to change the concept of “real beauty” by using real Women’ rather than the models. Dove clearly has done this well. Some perceive the campaign as giving everyone the ability to “feel beautiful” and that by buying Dove products, you too can reach your full potential. Women agree about moving away from the stereotypes of women. With its advertising through YouTube and many other blogs, fierce debates and discussion about the issue were in formation. In the very early stages of the campaign” Dove Marketing director for US Kathy O’Brien, told the press that the company wanted the ads to : change the way society views beauty and provoke discussion and debate about real beauty” And this is what exactly Dove did with the “Real Beauty Campaign”
Obviously Dove's new campaign has caught people's attention and did a good job for “brand awareness” It's been mentioned over several prestigious shows including: Jay Leno's late night show, Oprah Winfrey made a show on self-esteem, Ellen Degeneres loved the idea of real women beauty, and news casters reported continuously. After reading several blogs to have an idea about the viewpoint of bloggers about Dove campaign, the results are highly convoluted. Some bloggers support the idea of Real Beauty and have the similar feelings of inner beauty-or natural beauty- while some have found it not really REAL, and highlighted various kinds of controversies under different titles.About the Real Beauty Campaign by Dove, it has become evident that women are touched in "some" level that they identify themselves to one of the 6 ladies on Dove's ad boards. Some sites note that the new campaign's response rate surpassed 700%. There are blog posts about how to help girls have higher self-esteems. Mother’s are posting about how to teach their daughters that they are beautiful. Quite a few women are happy with the Real Beauty Campaign. One blogger posted “Its not perfect, but its a good step in the right direction. No one other mainstream beauty business has done more to expose the dangerous misrepresentation of women in the media.”Another quote from a blogger: “This ad is very real. They're not doing anything special to try and sell you. They're actually taking a very large part in raising awareness that every woman is beautiful, as well as to teach young girls that they don't need to idolize, or compare themselves to airbrushed models on TV.”
Utilizing the internet, Dove's management really got the hold of global attention on female beauty issue. To reach women on the personal level they launched several programs through their funds site.
But besides all the successful entry and sales of Dove mainly attributed to the new campaign, several blogs have mentioned some of the campaign's flaws. Moreover than that some other negative comments about the campaign and some of the ads were also posted . One said the photos of said to be “normal” women are still photo edited to create a type of beauty. Others say they don’t like seeing fat pictures of women and they wonder if it will diminish dreams for beauty.
Question 2.)
Compared to what and how mainstream media worked, the mainstream media of today is not as fragmented as it was. With the invention of Web 2.0, the ever increasing internet users creating and consuming information. What they say matters to the sales of a new product. Businesses of the 20th century rooted for repeat purchasers, but with global reach of the internet access, one time successful promotion to only a half of internet users can make one a millionaire. No matter are online advertising or a traditional ads, customers are smarter and become skeptical to judge an ads. Dove is highly aware of the situation and used the new tools of marketing. Dove's new marketing campaign has been successful due to the velocity with help of internet users, bloggers and tubers (YouTube users) to be specific. The background of the campaign was directed by several researches, interviews, surveys, psychiatrists’ consultations, and conversation with women. etc. (Exhibit 4) so what Dove do is involving the costumers ideas to the campaign directly. Right along with all, Dove organized a contest for the consumers to create their own ads. By doing this they keep the costumers (“real” women)/audience incorporated to the campaign. For the new way of marketing the consumers are not passive anymore. They were totally inside the campaign by blogs, forums, or other social network websites mainly by word of mouth, by a “cheap and fast “way of advertisement. However it is clear that this cheap way of advertisement is not easy to control anymore by Dove. The risk of consumers not being inspired by a brand that doesn’t lead to a new level of attractiveness doesn’t relate to Dove. The campaign which is a type of advertising for Dove products does create a new level of attractiveness. The new attractiveness is individual beauty.
Obviously Dove s marketing strategy is processing well by just looking at the numbers given in the case: “In September 2006 Landor associates identified Dove as one of the 10 brads with the greatest percentage gain in brand health and the business value in the past 3 years. It computed that the brand had grown by $1.2 billion.” Although it is not clarified whether the campaign has worked or not (if we take into consideration that the campaign started in early 2000s) there should be the campaign’s effect on this growth. Dove still advertises for its products and they have an image of creating pure, clean beauty. Since the ads and campaigns have a very clear message we don’t think there is a risk for Dove.