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Case Study: Dove’s “Real Beauty” Brand Campaign

Case Study: Dove’s “Real Beauty” Brand Campaign 6 min read

In the world of skincare, Unilever’s Dove has not only solidified its position with products promising moisture and softness but has also reshaped the beauty industry through its groundbreaking “Real Beauty” campaign, launched in 2004 . This article delves into the multifaceted facets of Dove’s campaign, exploring its inception, objectives, social impact, marketing mix analysis, key elements, pros and cons, and the profound long-term implications it has had on the brand and the beauty industry as a whole.

A Revolutionary Approach to Beauty Standards

Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign embarked on a revolutionary journey by challenging and redefining the prevailing beauty standards. Departing from the conventional models seen in beauty ads, Dove opted for authenticity, featuring real women of diverse body types, ages, and ethnicities. This bold move aimed not only to celebrate the natural beauty of women but also to inspire a global conversation on self-image and societal perceptions of beauty.

The Objectives: Beyond Skin Deep

The campaign’s objectives were multifaceted. Firstly, Dove sought to broaden the narrow beauty standards dictated by media and society, offering a more inclusive definition of beauty. Secondly, it aimed to stimulate a global conversation, urging people to reconsider their perceptions of beauty. Lastly, Dove sought to boost women’s self-esteem by featuring diverse women, fostering a positive self-image.

Impacting Society: Beyond Beauty Products

The social impact goals were evident from the outset – Dove aimed to change the narrative around beauty, inspiring women worldwide to embrace their unique beauty. Furthermore, the campaign sought to influence other brands and the advertising industry to adopt a more inclusive and realistic portrayal of women.

Analyzing the Marketing Mix

Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign serves as a stellar example of a well-executed marketing mix, strategically incorporating the four Ps – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

• Product : Beyond skincare, Dove sold an idea – a new definition of beauty that was inclusive and diverse.
• Price : The brand maintained its value-based pricing strategy, reinforcing the message that real beauty is not a luxury but a right accessible to every woman.
• Place : Widely available globally, Dove’s products reached a broad audience. The digital presence further expanded its global reach, making it a conversation transcending borders.
• Promotion : The campaign leveraged unconventional strategies, featuring real women across various mediums, from TV commercials to digital platforms.

Key Elements of Authenticity

The campaign’s authenticity lay in its use of diverse models and the introduction of the “inner goddess” concept. By showcasing real women of different ages, sizes, and ethnicities, Dove aimed to boost self-esteem and change the narrative around beauty.

Navigating Pros and Cons

While the campaign successfully shifted beauty ideals towards inclusivity, it faced criticism for inconsistencies, particularly concerning Unilever’s ownership of brands with contradictory messages. Instances of racial insensitivity in certain ads also sparked public outcry. Despite these challenges, the campaign significantly impacted the beauty industry and resonated positively with consumers.

Results and Outcome of the Campaign

Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign was not only a triumph in challenging traditional beauty standards but also an exceptional success in terms of its financial impact and long-lasting resonance. The results can be analyzed based on the information provided:

Free Media Exposure:

The campaign generated remarkable buzz, resulting in free media exposure worth 30 times Dove’s initial spend . This indicates the campaign’s extraordinary reach and effectiveness in capturing public attention.

Website Engagement:

The campaign’s website drew a substantial 1.5 million visitors . This high level of engagement suggests that people were actively seeking more information about the campaign, indicating a strong public interest and involvement.

Viral Videos:

Dove strategically released a series of viral videos that resonated with viewers. These videos aimed to showcase the self-critical nature of women regarding their appearance while highlighting their true beauty. The viral nature of these videos amplified the campaign’s impact and facilitated widespread conversation.

Inclusive Advertising:

Dove’s decision to feature women of all shapes and sizes in their underwear, with the tagline “ Tested on real curves ,” was a pivotal move . It challenged the conventional use of runway models in beauty advertisements and celebrated the diversity of everyday women. This approach resonated positively with the target audience, fostering a sense of representation and inclusivity.

Financial Impact:

The most tangible result of the campaign’s success was reflected in Dove’s finances. The company experienced a remarkable 10% increase in revenues within a single year. This substantial growth indicates not only a positive response from consumers but also the campaign’s effectiveness in driving sales.

Long-Term Sustainability:

The campaign’s enduring success is noteworthy, considering it is still running nearly 20 years later. This longevity underscores its sustained impact on Dove’s brand image and continued relevance in addressing societal perceptions of beauty.

Inspiring a Movement

The revolutionary impact of Dove’s campaign transcends the beauty industry. It has inspired other brands across various sectors, from lingerie with Aerie’s #AerieREAL campaign to cosmetics with CoverGirl’s #IAmWhatIMakeUp initiative. Even sports apparel, as seen in Nike’s ‘Better For It’ campaign, has embraced inclusivity, inspired by Dove’s groundbreaking initiative.

Conclusion: A Lasting Legacy

Dove’s Real Beauty campaign has left a lasting legacy in the marketing world, not only for its strategic approach but also for the profound impact it had on societal perceptions of beauty. The campaign’s success can be attributed to several key factors that set it apart from traditional marketing strategies.

Emotional Connection:

Dove’s ability to tap into people’s emotions played a pivotal role in the campaign’s success. By addressing a sensitive and prevalent issue – women’s self-image – Dove created a deep emotional connection with its audience. The campaign resonated with the insecurities many women face, fostering a sense of empathy and understanding.

Empowerment Over Exploitation:

Unlike some marketing campaigns that leverage fear, shame, or the desire to conform to societal standards, Dove chose a path of empowerment. The brand celebrated women for who they were at that moment, rejecting unrealistic beauty standards perpetuated by the media. This approach not only differentiated Dove from its competitors but also contributed to building a positive brand image.

Everyday Product Focus:

The decision to center the campaign around everyday products, such as soap and body wash, showcased Dove’s commitment to promoting realistic beauty standards in everyday life. This strategic choice allowed consumers to actively participate in promoting a new paradigm while purchasing products they regularly use. This broad appeal significantly contributed to the widespread success of the campaign.

Affordability and Accessibility:

Dove’s commitment to offering affordable and accessible products further amplified the impact of the Real Beauty campaign. By keeping prices reasonable and ensuring widespread availability in stores like Target, Walmart, and convenience stores, Dove made it easy for a diverse range of consumers to support the cause. This inclusivity ensured that the success of the campaign wasn’t limited to a specific demographic with higher purchasing power.

In conclusion, Dove’s Real Beauty campaign stands as a testament to the power of authenticity, empathy, and social responsibility in marketing. By addressing a societal issue with sensitivity and promoting positive change, Dove not only garnered customer loyalty but also contributed to a broader conversation about inclusivity and self-acceptance. The campaign’s impact transcended the realm of marketing, leaving a lasting legacy and setting a benchmark for brands aspiring to make a meaningful difference in society through their advertising efforts.

Also Read: Dissected: Snickers “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” Campaign

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Case Study: Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty

Unilevers Dove brand was launched in the market as a cleansing bar soap in 1957. The soap was based non-irritating cleaner and moisturizing component. By 1970s, Unilever had enhanced the soap into a beauty bar, which was milder and promised women of moisturized skins. The popularity of the soap at this time soared, and Unilever started expansion into the global market and by 1996, the brand was selling in over 80 countries. Between 1995 and 2001, Unilever expanded the range of products under the dove brand to include moisturizers, face creams, deodorants, shower gel, shampoos, conditioners, among other wide range of beauty and care products.

The key features and attributes of the brand such as its soft colors focused on promoting it as a rejuvenating, calming and exfoliating product brand with milder effects on the skin and high performance moisturizing abilities for dry skins. As the Dove brand mainly targeted women, its dove logo and tagline represent gentleness and softness at a higher sophistication in performance.

The Campaign’s Inspiration

In 2004, the Dove Brand commissioned a report “The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report – Findings of the Global Study on Women, Beauty and Well-Being.” It is rooted in the increasing concern that representations of female beauty in popular culture fed a definition of beauty that was both inauthentic and unattainable. The Dove Brand theorized, resultantly that women are in this way prevented from appreciating beauty in themselves.  Furthermore, in a culture women are so highly valued on their physical appearance, these standards have the potential to negatively impact women’s self-esteem, happiness, and overall well-being. Dove commissioned researchers from Harvard University, the London School of Economics, and StrategyOne to examine the relationship women have with beauty, determine how women define beauty, learn the level of satisfaction with women’s beauty and the impact beauty has on the well-being of women.

The findings were based on interviews with 3,200 women between the ages of 18-64 and were largely disheartening. World-wide, only 12% of women are satisfied with their physical appearance. No women described themselves as “gorgeous,” 1% of women described themselves as “stunning” and 2% of women describe themselves as “beautiful.” However there was a marked demand for broader, more inclusive definition of beauty: 68% strongly agree that the media sets and unrealistic standard of beauty and 75% wish the media did a better job of representing the broad range of women’s physical attractiveness, including size and shape and age. Furthermore, components of true beauty extend beyond mere physical attractiveness, to happiness, kindness, wisdom, dignity, love, authenticity and self-realization.

With this in mind the management team at Dove saw a great opportunity. At the time they were just introducing their line of beauty products.

Real Beauty Campaign  

The campaign developed by Ogilvy and Mather, focused on interacting with the consumers, with Dove branding itself not only as a beauty brand but also one that cares about and reaches out consumer’s needs. Adopting a reality based campaign using everyday girls in their advertisements; Dove not only enhanced self confidence, but also showed that Dove provides effective, accessible and affordable products that real women can confidently use to care for their skins. Philippe Harousseau, dove’s marketing manager noted that the Dove campaign sought to challenge the stereotypical beauty of young, tall and blond, and rather change the way beauty is perceived by emphasizing the beauty of each woman.

In 2004, Dove launched the first phase of it’s campaign to combat the problems revealed in their global study. They rolled-out a series of advertisements featuring women whose appearances are outside of the stereotypical norms of beauty. The Dove campaign recruited women recruited off the streets (at coffee shops, bookstores, grocery stores, etc.) instead of professional models. The women in the print ads are between the ages of 22 and 96 and a range across a variety of sizes (from 6 to 12). The   images were shot by in-demand fashion photographer David Rankin. Dove guarantees the images in the campaign have not been airbrushed in any way. The advertisements were places on billboards and bus stops throughout New York, Chicago, DC, LA and other top urban markets and asked viewers to go online to cast their vote: whether the models were “Fat or fab?”, “Wrinkled or wonderful?”, “Grey or gorgeous?” and “Freckled or flawless?”

The second phase of the campaign, launched in 2005, was the most iconic and featured six women with “real bodies and real curves.”  This phase’s mission was to directly challenge the stereotypical assumption that only thin is beautiful. The ads promoted Dove’s firming lotion.

In response to the news and media outcry that erupted after Spain banned overly-skinny models from runways in 2006, Dove expanded on this phase of the campaign with three notable video ads: Evolution, Onslaught, and Amy.  Each one of these videos tells a little bit about their campaign.

Evolution is a video about the beauty industry’s efforts to change women’s appearances into something completely different in the pursuit of publication. The video starts with a woman walking in the frame and sitting on a stool. A man can be heard shouting directions to some crew. The screen fades to black and then words appear on screen.“a Dove film”   followed later by “evolution.” As the woman comes back onto screen, lights begin to turn on and people start to surround her, doing her hair and make-up. As music swells the viewer, the artists transform an average-looking blonde woman into a creation filled with make-up and hairspray. The video is on time-lapse, so what likely took over an hour to complete takes mere seconds to watch. After the transformation, the woman models for a photographer, as noted by the flashing lights. A photo is selected and then placed into photo editing software. Her neck is elongated, her hair expanded, her eyes enlarged along with a myriad of other small details to alter the image. The camera starts to zoom out and the viewer can see that the image is now on billboard overlooking a busy street. Then “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted” appears on screen. The video ends with the Dove self-esteem fund logo. This video serves as a way to inform viewers about the Dove fund and to speak out against the rampant use cosmetics and technology in order to alter women to appear as something they are not. They took a woman and made her into something that she could never be, with features not physically possible, but in a packaged way that made her seem normal nonetheless.

Onslaught is similar to Evolution in that it also targets the beauty industry and how they make an attempt to change women or tell them to change. Onslaught also starts with a black screen and then the “a Dove film” and “Onslaught” appear on screen. A young redheaded girl appears on screen. Cheery music starts in the background, but transitions to more of rock music with the words “here it comes” repeated five times each time heightening the anticipation of the viewer. The final repetition is joined with the little girl disappearing and images of ads with small women taking her place. The ads are shown for less than a second each, not enough time to actually see what they are advertising but enough time to notice the often scantily clad women. The body part in the clips vary between buttocks, legs, chests, lips, and every other imaginable body part. The video pauses at what can be assumed as a music video with two women in bathing suits gyrating. The video returns to clips with ads for things to alter appearance. Key words can now be made out and strung together they say, “You’ll look younger, smaller, lighter, firmer, tighter, thinner, softer.” As the barrage continues, the adds show a woman on a scale. Her body gets smaller then larger and then smaller again in alternating clips spread through ones for losing weight. Then montage of plastic surgery–everything from breast augmentations to rhinoplasties. The ad then flashes to a few young girls walking across the street. “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does” appears on screen right as the young redhead crosses the street looking at the audience. The ad finishes with the Dove fund logo. The name of the video is quiet telling about what Dove is trying to say. The little girl is meant to be a symbol of innocence and purity, she has not be affected by outside influences, yet. She soon will be noticing images everywhere, an onslaught in fact, that will be influencing her perception of the ideal body. Dove is urging parents, mothers specifically, to warn their daughters about how companies advertise and to have them get their confidence from internal sources rather than external ones.

Amy again starts in a similar fashion to the other two videos.  The video shows a young boy, roughly 12 in age riding his bike to a house. He sits outside saying, “Amy” repeatedly. He looks disappointed that she is not appearing. After it is clear that he has been waiting a while, “Amy can name 12 things wrong with her appearance.” Preceded by a pause, “He can’t name one” then flashes followed by “Sent to you by someone who thinks you’re beautiful” and the Dove fund logo. Amy is supposed to be a young girl who has been affected by the beauty industry. She is self-conscious and is likely seeing problems that others don’t actually see.

The Campaign’s Effect

The campaign received free advertising space from media coverage on national television shows that reached 30 million viewers. The Oprah Winfrey Show aired the campaign daily for a week straight. The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Today Show, The View and CNN also featured the campaign. Over the following year, profits from these advertisements increased dramatically and the campaign returned $3 for every $1 spent which is encouraging because is suggests that making profits and promoting ideas of positive beauty aren’t mutually-exclusive goals. In her book, Enlightened Sexism, Susan Douglas writes that the year that Dove started the Campaign for Real Beauty, their sales rose 12.5% and 10% the year after, hardly something to ignore. Clearly women were responding to their ad campaign. Women flocked to the company that were putting real women in their ads.

This campaign was powerfully moving for many women who were extremely relieved to see everyday diversity of feminine beauty celebrated by a prominent beauty company. Stacy Nadeau (one of the six Dove Beauties, now a public speaker and promoter of self-esteem in young girls) gave a lecture at Colgate in 2010 during which she told a story about a public appearance the six of them made shortly after the unveiling of the 2nd phase. One middle-aged woman approached the group, crying and holding a Dove advertisements and a picture of her daughter, who was recovering from anorexia. She said her daughter’s prognosis was extremely dire until the launch of this advertisement campaign at which point these photos became an inspiration for her daughter. In an emotional moment for all, still openly crying she thanked the women for saving her daughter’s life.

As a whole, Dove’s campaign for real beauty  was a pioneering attempt to challenge the conceptions of beauty that are so limiting and harmful to women.

Campaign Critiques

In a world that is inundated with images that give women a narrow view of what the ideal body, the Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty is a refreshing change. It opens up the conversation about how young women are influenced by the media and how the media can distort images to give unrealistic expectations. However, the Dove campaign also falls victims to some of the old tricks such as consumerism and sexualization as means to empower women.  Critics voiced concerns about the authenticity of the brand’s movement, their parent company’s questionable associations, and the actual product the ads are selling.

As previously mentioned, the campaign generated double-digit growth for Dove in the second quarter of 2005. As evident in Dove’s case study, which is very blatantly focused on the economic advantages of this campaign, women influence or buy 80% of products sold, thus marketing to women is crucial for Dove’s success.  Author Jonah Bloom remarked, “ You think Dove hatched ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ because it cares about women’s self-esteem? No, it simply wanted to play to the pack-following newsrooms all over the country that it knew would give the campaign more media coverage than it could have bought with a decade’s worth of marketing.”

But, by going and buying these products, women were, and still are, falling victim to consumerism. Dove’s campaign is giving women a means to overcome the stick figure expectation. But, they must purchase their products to do so. In order to break free of the pressure from some companies, they buy products from another. Assumed power and control is only given through consumerism.

The Dove Brand’s parent company is Unilever which owns many off-shoot brands including AXE, Slimfast, and Fair and Lovely. AXE commercials depend heavily on sexist stereotypes and overtly sexualized women to sell their product. Slimfast is clearly in direct contradiction of the message of Dove campaign as it’s products perpetuate the same body-insecurity problems Dove’s is trying to fight. Fair and Lovely is a skin-lightening product that is marketed to dark-skinned women across the world. This product reinforces the stereotype that light skin and beauty are somehow related. While the creators of Dove’s campaign for real beauty  may not be in the position to directly influence the actions of these other products, the mere association is enough to slightly tarnish the image of the campaign.

Another issue with the Dove’s campaign for real beauty  is the sexualization of women. The most well known ad for the company is a series of “real” women clad only in white underwear posing for a camera. They are heralded as a change in times. In order to show that the women are comfortable in their own skin, they are showing nearly all of it. In most cases, ads targeted towards women do not have scantily clad women in them. Those are typically for men. Many of Dove’s products are for smoother or softer skin, which is easily shown with the half-naked women. White is generally associated with purity and cleanliness. By having white undergarments for the women to model, they are being given and underlying nature of cleanliness and purity. In this case, the purity can come across as sexual purity. Since it is an ad about women celebrating their bodies, of course it is not about sex. In fact, it is the opposite. Because of the nature of the ad, the marketers were able to be more sexual without off-putting their female consumers who would normally oppose such a move. The ads are telling women that they can be empowered by being sexual, i.e. by still being attractive in their underwear. The ads from Dove still fall victim to sexualization.

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Dove: Maintaining a Brand with Purpose

Can Unilever’s Dove soap maintain both its market position and social impact?

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Unilever’s Dove soap became a brand with purpose when it launched the “Campaign for Real Beauty” to combat media-driven stereotypes of female beauty. But now Dove is facing criticism about its other brands that contradict the Dove campaign, and struggling to determine the best allocation of funds between advertising and the educational programs that deliver social impact. Can Dove maintain both its market position and social impact in the future?

Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer, Mark Kramer discusses his case, “ Dove and Real Beauty: Building a Brand with Purpose .”

HBR Presents is a network of podcasts curated by HBR editors, bringing you the best business ideas from the leading minds in management. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harvard Business Review or its affiliates.

BRIAN KENNY: Molly Wolfe Hungerford, who hailed from County Cork, Ireland published romantic novels under the pen name The Duchess in the late 1800s. Her works were characterized as entertaining and charming, though not of great depth. But one phrase from her most popular book has stood the test of time. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Such a simple concept, but hard to accept when the global beauty industry is spending $14.4 billion a year, showing us what beauty should look like and telling us how to achieve it. Can consumers really trust that a beauty brand has their best interest at heart?

Today on Cold Call we’ll hold a mirror up to purpose-driven brands with Mark Kramer’s case entitled, Dove and Real Beauty: Building a Brand with Purpose. I’m your host, Brian Kenny, and you’re listening to Cold Call on the HBR Presents network.

Mark Kramer is a leading researcher, writer, and lecturer on strategies for social impact. He also co-founded FSG, a social impact consultancy that operates globally. Hey, Mark. Thanks for joining us today. This is your second spin on Cold Call , so we’re glad to have you back.

MARK KRAMER: Absolutely, Brian. Delighted to be here.

BRIAN KENNY: And everybody knows who Dove is. I’m going to ask you to start by telling us what your cold call would be when you teach this in the classroom, how would you start it out?

MARK KRAMER: Well, there’s actually an exercise I ask students to do about allocating their marketing budget. Because one of the interesting challenges is that what Dove is spending to actually influence young boys and girls to have a more positive body image all around the world is reaching a target audience of 11 to 14-year-olds. But their customer segment is actually 18 to 30-year-olds. And so there’s a dilemma that the marketing managers face as to how much of their budget should be spent on just traditional product promotion, how much should be spent on general publicity about the issue of beauty and women’s self-esteem, and how much should be spent on the actual programs that reach more than 35 million people around the world to actually influence their own thinking? And so I ask students to figure out how they’re going to allocate their budget among these three different activities.

BRIAN KENNY: Very interesting. Let me ask you why you decided to write this case. Actually, there’s another case in the collection that I found when I was reading this one that focuses a little bit on the early years of Dove’s corporate social responsibility approach here, but yours goes much deeper into where they are and it brings us right up to date. How does this relate to the kinds of things that you think about as a scholar and a teacher?

MARK KRAMER: Well, I teach a course on purpose and profit, really thinking about how companies can embed a social purpose into their core strategy in ways that will make a difference, both in terms of social impact and in terms of business benefit. And one of the great things about this case is we really have solid evidence about the reach and impact of Dove’s campaign on the attitudes and self-image of young people around the world, as well as actual evidence about the impact on the sales and the return on advertising spend for Dove. So you can see a very clear, measurable social impact and a very clear, measurable business impact. But I think it goes beyond that as well. First, a lot of people think about this issue of beauty as being less important than perhaps other social issues out there, climate change and so on. And one of the other interesting things about the case is the research that shows that limitations around self-image create tremendous obstacles for people in their lives. That women will not show up for a job interview, will miss a day of work, may not go to a doctor’s appointment, that young girls and boys may not participate in athletic activities, people may not show up to vote, all because they feel bad about their appearance. And of course the beauty industry is presenting us with images that have been tremendously retouched, such that no actual living human being can achieve that level of beauty. And yet we’re inundated with this consistent set of images that none of us actually come close to, and we feel bad because we don’t.

BRIAN KENNY: I think the situation in terms of the way this affects young people, women in particular, has really been exacerbated by social media.

MARK KRAMER: Yes, absolutely. One of the interesting parts about it is the reference to the public health pyramid. Because when you’re trying to reach people around an issue, you have a choice of going broad or going deep. And what the public health pyramid suggests is that you need to do both things, that there need to be programs that are intensive, programs that actually do change people’s attitudes and behavior, and that may need to be managed by a teacher or a trained facilitator. And at the same time, if you want to reach millions and millions of young boys and girls, you need to find ways to do it through social media, through television shows, through advertising, other things that have a lighter touch but reach a broader base. And so, one of the interesting things here is that Dove really developed a comprehensive public health approach that includes both the broad reach and the intensive engagement. And of course, they have the resources to do this in a way that most nonprofit organizations do not. And so it’s a really powerful example of how a company can, frankly, improve on efforts to achieve social impact over what the nonprofits and NGO community can do.

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. That’s a great segue into my next question, which is just, if we pull the lens back a little bit, where does Dove sit in the personal care industry? It’s a huge industry.

MARK KRAMER: It’s a huge industry. And Dove has become, partly because of this campaign, Unilever’s single largest brand. But of course, one of the things that makes this campaign possible is that Dove soap, which is a moisturizing soap, is really about what is healthy for your skin, as opposed to a cosmetics company or a company that is more focused on actually changing your physical appearance. And so there’s a way in which Dove could embark on this Campaign for Real Beauty and tie it to their products in a way that other beauty industry cosmetics companies could not really legitimately do.

BRIAN KENNY: And that’s always been core to their brand. If you could look back at that classic advertising, that’s always been part of their message.

MARK KRAMER: One of the interesting things I discovered in doing the case is that Dove soap is actually not soap. It has a different chemical composition that was developed in World War II as a way of cleaning burns and wounds more gently. And so it actually is a different product. And their advertising has always been fact-based, asking consumers to test the soap against competing soaps, to use a pH strip to measure the pH, or to actually wash one half of their face with Dove and the other half with some other soap. So there’s a reality base to their positioning, which, again, is part of what has made this approach to their advertising consistent with the brand, consistent with the strategy.

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. And we use the term purpose-driven brand. I don’t want to assume that our listeners know what that means. So from you, you study these all the time. How would you describe what a purpose-driven brand is?

MARK KRAMER: Well, I think it is a brand that has taken a social purpose or social impact goal as core to its positioning, and is actually doing things that have a measurable impact on that issue, and doing it in a way that is also differentiating their product from others, contributing to the brand identity, and driving sales. So it’s a great example of what Professor Porter and I refer to as, “creating shared value,” companies that have found a way to really bring social impact and business benefit together to create a lasting, sustainable competitive advantage.

BRIAN KENNY: And we’ve talked about a lot of purpose-driven brands on the show in the past, and it really seems like this is not about altruism. I mean, that seems to be a really good side benefit of this, but brands wouldn’t do this if it didn’t somehow tie back to their business in a positive way. Is that safe to say?

MARK KRAMER: Absolutely. And of course, altruism is great, and companies contribute philanthropy and that’s a wonderful thing, but the average large company in the US contributes about three-quarters of 1% of their profit to philanthropy. So it’s a very limited pot of money. Whereas when you’re doing something that is actually driving revenue in sales, you can spend vastly more money. And it’s not just the advertising reach, but it’s the ability to do serious research to understand how to impact and influence the issue. And so that’s why we think that purpose-driven brands where the expenditure is actually driving revenue is actually much more powerful than philanthropy.

BRIAN KENNY: Let’s talk a little bit about how this has evolved over the years at Dove. It’s sustained over time through different leaders. Why do you think that is? How are they able to keep the focus on this, and at the same drive the revenues that they needed to drive to make the business work?

MARK KRAMER: Yeah. I think that’s one of the fascinating things about this case. And it’s very clear in the case stated by Steve Miles, the guy who’s responsible for the brand, that in order to make this part of the company, they had to do four things. First, they had to have buy-in from the CEO. And of course, Paul Polman is famously recognized for his focus on sustainable living. And he picked up on this issue and encouraged Dove to pursue this path.

BRIAN KENNY: Now he’s the CEO of Unilever, is that right?

MARK KRAMER: He was the CEO Of Unilever. He stepped down about a year or two ago, but his tradition is being continued by Alan Jope, who’s the current CEO. Secondly, there has to be a culture within the company that really appreciates the issue. And so Dove has a day every year where thousands of employees go out to schools and actually facilitate one of the training programs about body image. And it enables employees to have a direct personal experience about the value of this program. And then equally important is proof of the social impact and proof of the business benefit. And so they have done studies that have determined, what is the return on investment for the advertising expenditures? It turns out to be four times higher for their purpose-driven advertising than for their product-driven advertising. They look at the impact of intent to purchase on the part of consumers who are aware of their program, and it is anywhere between a 10 to 25% increase in intent to purchase, which is absolutely huge. So they have rigorous evidence of the business benefit of this, but then they have also worked with Harvard and the London School of Economics and London School of Hygiene to do rigorous randomized control trials by these third parties, to demonstrate that these programs are actually evidence-based and actually do change young girls’ and boys’ perceptions of beauty and of their own body image. And so it’s these combination of factors, the CEO’s support, engaging the culture of the company and employees widely in this campaign, but also demonstrating that you are achieving results on both the business and social impact side that is really what has kept this program in place for nearly two decades at this point.

BRIAN KENNY: It’s really interesting because the case refers to some of the approaches that they’ve taken to introduce these concepts to the world. And there’ve been some pretty famous videos that they’ve launched. Can you talk a little bit about how they’re bringing these ideas to people on a broad scale?

MARK KRAMER: One of the nice things about the case is that Dove has given us permission to link to the videos so that you can actually see them firsthand. And I have to say, some of these videos actually bring tears to my eyes. They’re famous for the Evolution ad, which is just a simple 75-second ad that actually shows how a normal woman’s face is transformed through makeup and styling, but also through digital retouching to the kind of image we actually see on a billboard or on television. And it makes so clear the fact that this is not a form of beauty that is humanly achievable. And it cost $150,000 to create that ad. They believe they’ve generated $150 million worth of advertising revenue from hundreds of millions of people viewing this ad. The one that I find even more touching is the Sketches ad, where they have a forensic artist from the police force set up to sketch women’s faces. And the artist can’t see the woman, but he asks the woman to describe her face, and he sketches it. And then the woman goes off and meets with another person and just spends a little time chatting with them. And then the artist asks that second person to describe the first woman’s face. And what happens is that that stranger’s description of the face is much more beautiful than the woman’s description of her own face. And then they put up the two sketches and let the woman come back and see the difference. And again, it brings tears to my eyes to see people recognize how they have internalized a sense of unattractiveness that is not what the world sees.

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. It’s very powerful. And the case goes into some of the numbers. I forget what the exact statistics are, but women’s self-image is super low, pretty much everywhere in the world.

MARK KRAMER: It is. And one of the challenges of the case is, the reasons why it’s low and how to influence it are culturally dependent. And so the programs that have worked in the US and Western Europe don’t work in China, don’t work in India, don’t work in Africa, and yet these are important emerging markets for the brand. And so the brand has really had to do pretty intensive research to understand how to make their programs relevant in different parts of the world.

BRIAN KENNY: I guess one of the questions I have is, there are some tensions that the case reveals, and the Dove brand is one of Unilever’s brands, but they also have the Axe brand. They have brands that represent the complete counter to what natural, real beauty should be all about. And they reinforce all the stereotypes that we’re seeing from other beauty companies about what beauty should look like.

MARK KRAMER: That’s right. And that always leads to a terrific student discussion about how to manage this conflict. And one of the things we talk about in our course is this idea of whether companies are good or evil, or whether they are net positive. And there are a lot of non-profits or NGOs out there that want to try and evaluate whether a company is good or bad. We actually think that’s naive, that any large company is probably doing some good things somewhere in the world and some bad things somewhere else. And when Porter and I talk about this idea of creating shared value, we focus in on what every company can do to actually create positive impact somewhere, somehow in its set of activities and products or services. And we don’t try and pronounce whether a company is a saint or a devil. And so this forces students to think about, given the undeniable positive impact that Dove is having, how do you think about Unilever more broadly given that they also do have these products that take a very different view of beauty?

BRIAN KENNY: We live in the age of millennials and Gen Z. We know that people in these generations care a lot about the organizations they work for, and they want to work for someplace that they can feel good about. How does this help Dove in terms of attracting new talent? Have they seen it reap dividends in that area as well?

MARK KRAMER: They have. And I know that from conversations with the folks we interviewed at Dove. I’m not sure to be honest, that that is a dimension that comes through as strongly in the case as perhaps it should. And I have to admit, I sometimes am a little bit skeptical about that. There’s no question people would like to work for a company that they feel good about. On the other hand, there are a lot of different motivations that go into taking a job.

BRIAN KENNY: So how do they balance then, I guess, between investing in the mission, because it’s a really important part of their brand, but also driving the sale of products? You mentioned earlier that product managers have to make these hard choices. What does that look like? Where do they come down on that?

MARK KRAMER: Well, it does vary from market to market, and while they are taking a more centralized role and have recently decided that every market has to spend at least 50% of its expenditure on the mission-related advertising and programs. Actually, during most of the time that’s covered by the case, the average market only spent 5% of their revenue on these programs. And there is evidence in the case from some studies that the more that regional managers spend on the mission-related advertising and programs, the better the product sales do. On the other hand, there was one point where they went entirely with mission-driven, and the product sales began to lag. And so there is this, again, interesting tension within the case, about how much do you spend on social impact, how much do you spend bragging about the social impact you have so people are aware of it, and how much do you spend on just traditional advertising to make people go buy the product? And there isn’t a single correct answer, but it is a tension that runs throughout the case.

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. I think that’s interesting too, because the cynics who are listening might say, “Oh, come on. I mean, do they really believe this stuff? Isn’t this just another form of marketing for Dove to sell soap and beauty products?”

MARK KRAMER: What’s really interesting about Dove here is they really have developed these intensive programs with the World Association of Girl Guides and Scouts, and with universities that actually reach tens of millions of young people around the world, and actually do influence their self-image. And so their spending on these programs is not just advertising dollars, not just money going to charity, but is actually delivering real impact in a way that the nonprofit sector really couldn’t afford to do.

BRIAN KENNY: I thought it was interesting, the whole aspect of them moving from saying to doing, and that’s something we talk about at Harvard Business School a lot. And that was behind the introduction of The FIELD Method a few years ago, was that we knew that the case method in the classroom was doing a great job of inculcating ideas and theories, but we needed to get students to a place where they actually had to act on those ideas. And it sounds like Dove has taken that to the next step too, to keep invigorating this campaign.

MARK KRAMER: Absolutely. They talk very clearly about this balance of brand say and brand do. And again, part of what’s interesting is most of the brand do, these actual programs that reach young people around the world, most of their customers are not aware of it. There’s a data point in the case that only about 28% of consumers are aware of the brand do. And yet they need the brand do to give integrity to the brand say, and they wouldn’t be able to partner with nonprofit organizations. And they actually receive grant funding from UNICEF and Gavi and other organizations to extend their work. They wouldn’t be able to do that if they didn’t have the actual brand do on the ground.

BRIAN KENNY: So how would you define this in terms of the culture of the organization, how much a part of the culture of the organization is the Real Beauty campaign? Has it become just part of their DNA at this point?

MARK KRAMER: It has absolutely become part of their DNA. But one of the interesting challenges when you’re trying to solve a social problem as part of your marketing or business model, is that if you actually succeed, you undercut your own differentiation. So there’s been a real shift over the last 15 years in advertisers beginning to use real women rather than actresses and models in a greater awareness of the challenges of this artificial sense of beauty and its consequences for public health and for people’s lives. And so as they have actually become more successful in putting this issue on the global agenda, they have lost some of their differentiation. And so one of the questions the case raises is, should they continue with this campaign or do they need to move on to something else? When is it no longer differentiating their marketing, even if they’re continuing to have a positive impact?

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. Really interesting question, and not an easy solution at all I would think, once you’ve got so much invested in this particular purpose-driven approach.

MARK KRAMER: Absolutely.

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. This has been a fabulous conversation. I have one more question for you before we let you go, Mark. And that is, for those people who are out there listening, maybe they work at organizations where they’re already purpose-driven, or maybe they want to bring some purpose to their organization, what’s one thing that you’d like them to take away from this case?

MARK KRAMER: Well, the one thing I’d like them to take away from this case is it’s about having actual impact in a way that creates both social and business benefit. It’s not about posturing, it’s not about philanthropy. It’s about actually achieving both business and social impact and holding yourself accountable on both of those dimensions.

BRIAN KENNY: That’s great. Mark Kramer, thank you so much for joining us today.

MARK KRAMER: Brian, thank you. A pleasure to be here.

BRIAN KENNY: If you enjoy Cold Call , you might like other podcasts on the HBR Presents Network. Whether you’re looking for advice on navigating your career, you want the latest thinking in business and management, or you just want to hear what’s on the minds of Harvard Business School professors, the HBR Presents Network has a podcast for you. Find them on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I’m your host, Brian Kenny, and you’ve been listening to Cold Call , an official podcast of Harvard Business School on the HBR Presents Network.

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2019 WINNER 5 FOR 50 5 FOR 50

Dove dove - campaign for real beauty, ogilvy *lead agency, edelman usa *lead agency.

In 2003 Dove set out to make beauty a source of confidence, not anxiety, for women. Fifteen years later millions of beauty insecurities have been dispelled and billions of dollars have been added to brand value. Dove’s campaign touched hearts, impacted lives, changed the beauty industry and made Dove the most meaningful beauty brand in the world. But the battle is far from won. As new beauty anxieties appear, Dove continues to pursue its bold vision for change.

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Dove and Real Beauty: Building a Brand with Purpose

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• Dove and Real Beauty: Building a Brand with Purpose  By: Mark R. Kramer
• Dove and Real Beauty: Building a Brand with Purpose  By: Mark R. Kramer, Myriam Sidibe and Gunjan Veda

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Dove’s “Real Beauty” Campaign: Body Positive Promotion or Genderwashing?

This case discusses the rapid growth of the now controversial “positive body image” promotional strategy, that some have suggested is “genderwashing,” whereby firms may engage with progressive gender and race issues in one brand’s promotional campaign while creating perceived contrary campaigns with that of other brands or campaigns that don’t seem to fit the body positive narrative. Specifically, this case examines the Dove Real Beauty campaign in conjunction with that of Axe Body Spray and Fair Lovely (all brands owned by Unilever) from a conceptual perspective. A conceptual model of a genderwashing is offered and potential managerial implications are articulated whereby it is posited that these campaigns can lead to consumer cynicism and a desire to cease purchases.

In 2004, Dove launched its “Campaign for Real Beauty.” Silvia Lagnado [1] , the global brand director for Dove stated at the time, “The Campaign for Real Beauty is a pro-beauty campaign in its most realistic sense, furthering the idea that real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages. It's a campaign designed to spark debate about (and hopefully widen) the current definition of beauty” (p. 20). Over a decade later, Dove continues to promote its brand under this concept and campaign. Throughout the campaign’s history, Dove has used various promotions, including multimedia advertisements, short films, billboard, television and magazine ads, and the creation of an interactive and educational “Real Beauty” website. Lisa Klauser, Dove’s Vice President of marketing shared services stated, “Because we’re out to influence pop culture, you see our brand taking a very distinctive point of view…” (as cited in Neff, 2006 [2] ). Dove soon realized that taking this stance in their IMC strategy generated a buzz on social media, in high school classrooms, in feminist literature and on college campuses. The resulting publicity might have given Dove a response much greater than any paid placement alone could achieve. The 60 second Dove: Evolution spot which ran during the 2006 Super Bowl “generated about 90 million impressions, but pre-and post-game publicity produced 400 million, even though the ad only aired one time on regular TV” [2] . In 2013, this same strategy again proved successful with the 60 second spot Real Beauty Sketches . Receiving nearly 135 million views after going viral across the Internet, Advertising Age reported that the spot was the most-viewed video ad campaign of 2013 [3] . As a result of taking a “progressive” and “positive body image” point of view, the “Campaign for Real Beauty” has created massive exposure for the Unilever-owned brand.

While this campaign and others like it have been wildly popular as marketing has traditionally used “idealized” beauty as something to aspire to [4] , there has been some negative fallout and criticism related to it. Much of the criticism stems from stereotypically gendered campaigns in Unilever’s portfolio, as well as perceived problematic attributes of the Dove ads themselves. More recently, in 2017, Dove ran into a wealth of controversy with their Facebook campaign that appeared to depict a woman of color “taking off her top” after using Dove to reveal a Caucasian woman underneath.

See the Dove advertisement image .

Many consumers, as they posted on social media, considered this to be racially insensitive and in line with another Dove ad that had similar claims of insensitivity. This one appeared to imply that darker skin was undesirable and that Caucasian skin was exemplary of beauty.

See the Dove body wash advertisement image .

Some critics have labeled practices like these genderwashing . This is where firms may engage with progressive gender issues in one brand’s promotional campaign while concurrently creating contrary campaigns with that of other brands and/or engaging in contrary business practices. Critics believe this may be an attempt on the part of the firm to leverage negative publicity about ethically troubling campaigns, with a more “feel-good,” “progressive” campaign nested in a corporate social responsibility (CSR) imperative.

Dove’s first stage of the campaign began in 2004 with the aim of “broadening the definition of beauty by challenging stereotypical conventions.” [5] . They did this by presenting images of women who, on the surface, appeared outside of these conventions on billboards and in print ads with statements that posed questions like “wrinkled? or wonderful?,” “fat? or fit?,” “grey? or gorgeous?,” and “flawed? or flawless?” [5] . To accompany the launch of the campaign, Dove released “The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report,” after commissioning and supporting research that aimed “to further the global understanding of women, beauty, and well-being—and the relationship between them” [6] . As Johnston and Taylor [7] explain “this format provided a space to debate feminized beauty ideals and was a win-win situation for Dove: it could promote its products as beauty solutions and at the same time express concern with narrow beauty ideals” (p. 952). In 2005, Dove expanded the campaign and launched their “Real Women in the Spotlight” advertisements, which “set out to debunk the stereotypes that only thin is beautiful” [5] . In advertisements, Dove had individuals stand in simple white bras and underwear below the phrase “real women with real bodies.” Using women that appeared to vary in race, height, weight, breast size and hair color, Dove presented a diverse group of individuals who were not stereotypical models in attempts of challenging society’s general understanding of beauty.

Dove continued its objective of making “real” women feel more beautiful in 2006 with the creation of the Little Girls short film. This was soon followed by the short film Evolution . That film, which went viral, “was created to expose the unrealistic expectations of beauty perpetuated in media all around us” [5] . In 2007, the spot, Onslaught was released, and later that year, “Dove teamed up with renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz to create an empowering celebration of beautiful women over 50” introducing their “pro-age” portion of the campaign [5] .

In 2013, the spot, Real Beauty Sketches became wildly popular. Dove states that Sketches “reveals a universal truth about women's perception of their own beauty,” concluding that women are too self-critical and they are more beautiful than they know [5] . Dove’s latest installment of the campaign includes the short films Selfie, Patches, and Mirrors and the social media campaign “#beautyis.”

Dove adds another dimension to the “Campaign for Real Beauty” through the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. By utilizing what Johnson and Taylor [7] term “grassroots partnering,” the fund has partnered with the Global Advisory Board, the Boys and Girls Club, Girls Inc., and the American Girl Scouts “to support efforts that help raise the self-esteem of girls and young women and help them combat their hang-ups about the way they look,” according to Dove Global brand director Lagnado [1] . Through these partnerships, Dove reports that the fund has been successful in reaching over 11 million girls with self-esteem education and hopes to reach 15 million by 2015 [5] . By linking a social mission to their beauty brand, Johnston and Taylor [7] explain how by promoting itself as a progressive force for women, Dove has been able to associate itself with feminist ideals, engage in grassroots partnering and implement self-esteem programs, and receive widespread praise in the popular media for its “progressive actions.” (p. 943).

While Dove states the goal of the Real Beauty Campaign is to challenge the normative standards of Western beauty, the campaign’s message is not as transparent as presented. Dove set out to represent “real women;” however, the individuals featured in the campaign are not necessarily representative of the “average” female population. Most efforts of the campaign predominantly feature women that are, by conventional norms, facially “attractive” and caucasian. The models used “range in dress sizes from 6 to 12. While larger than the average fashion model (size 4), they are still smaller than the average American woman, who is a size 14 (p. 942) [7] .” While describing Real Beauty’s Sketches video in her blog post on Tumblr, critic Jazz Price noted, "When it comes to the diversity of the main participants: all four are Caucasian, three are blonde with blue eyes, all are thin, and all are young (the oldest appears to be 40). The majority of the non-featured participants are thin, young white women as well. …out of 6:36 minutes of footage, people of color are onscreen for less than 10 seconds" (as cited in Griner, 2013 [8] ). In Sketches , only one Asian woman, three black women and one black man are shown. When featured, two of the black women are briefly seen and then only when they are negatively describing themselves. And, as we previously mentioned, the controversy in 2017 with the Facebook campaign led to increased problems. These types of criticisms have led some to believe that the Dove campaign is not entirely genuine or inclusive.

Overall, Dove’s Real Beauty campaign has elicited reactions ranging from incredibly positive to extremely critical. Many applaud Dove for effectively “reaching a mainstream audience, [which is] often difficult when dealing with something that might be considered a political issue” (p. 46) [9] . The campaign has been praised for taking such a bold stance as a beauty brand. Dove has been admired for opting to a make change and using its wide degree of influence in positive ways. However, Dove has come under major criticism for its engagement in contrary-type practices out of the public eye. Very few consumers know that the firm that owns Dove, Unilever, also owns (or owned during the campaign) a wide range of other companies, most notably Axe Body Spray and Slim-Fast. The ads and positioning for two these brands specifically are not viewed as empowering; some might say they’re offensive and gendered. Slim-Fast is a “quick weight loss” product that routinely makes it appear that “slimmer is better” and therefore constructs an image for American women that slimmer is more attractive. Fair and Lovely is a product sold to Asian women to make their skin lighter, more closely resembling western Caucasian women (and thereby “more attractive”). Additionally, Unilever also owns Suave, another beauty brand. As Dove released their Evolution film, Suave began their Pretty Mommy campaign, which “plays on moms’ insecurities about letting themselves go.” [10] Donna Charlton-Perrin, the Suave creative director, stated “Dove is talking about something that’s very internal, about your self-esteem… Suave is just asking you to make a very surface change,” which is promoting a message contradictory to Dove’s [10] . An editorial published by Advertising Age argues, "perhaps [Unilever] shouldn’t be crowing about virtues in the communications for one brand if it’s preaching vices for another” (2007, 16). “Unilever is the beauty industry. To point fingers at other brands and at the same time be taking advantage of the same horrific marketing other companies are doing is incredibly hypocritical” [11] . Mahdawi [12] argues that companies like Unilever have been using women’s rights as a marketing ploy and “feminism has become a great way to sell stuff… these manipulative videos are produced to make us choose Dove products over other products—and that’s it.” Pelley [13] states, “It’s also offensive that this campaign subtly blames women for their insecurities and ignores its own role in helping create them. The message seems to be, “We don’t need to make better products or change our advertising; it’s you who needs to change your thinking.” As such, beauty is still being perpetuated as the value in which women evaluate their self-worth.

Some believe the Dove Real Beauty Campaign exemplifies genderwashing . Believed to have been first coined by Burk [14] relating to Walmart’s handling of gender issues, genderwashing is a term “to convey the same meaning ‘greenwashing’ evokes when its used to describe companies that try to look environmentally responsible – while doing little or nothing to actually change themselves or improve the environment.” As Laufer [15] explains, greenwashing is a strategy firms use to manage their reputations with the public to hide deviant behavior, obscure problems or allegations, reattribute blame and/or appear as a leader. Laufer [15] believes that these corporations “engage in complex strategies and counter strategies that serve to shift the focus and attention away from the firm, create confusion, undermine credibility, criticize viable alternatives, and deceptively posture firm objectives, commitments and accomplishments” (p. 255) [15] . Further, the problematic use of sustainability as a promotional theme to make consumers feel guilty as opposed to firm engagement with sustainable practice has been mentioned by many in the literature [16] [17] .

Genderwashing may be predicated on two specific concepts. The first, commodity feminism, turns feminism into a commodity. Goldman, Heath and Smith [18] explain:

They further state, “to signify feminism, advertisers assemble signs which connote independence, participation in the work force, individual freedom, and self-control. Commodity feminism presents feminism as a style—a semiotic abstraction—a set of visual sign values that say who you are” (p. 337). Yet by converting feminism into a commercial advertising strategy, commodity feminism “depoliticizes the feminist message” (p. 87) [19] .

Similarly, Johnston and Taylor [7] introduce the term feminist consumerism as

This approach has the possibility of unsettling gender norms only if employed in a consumer-oriented society. Similarly, based on analysis of Nike’s campaigns towards women, the concept “celebrity feminism” termed by Cole and Hribar [20] explains how, through discourses of free will, Nike defined itself as “pro-women by positioning itself through the themes of being natural, authenticity, and self-growth. By defining itself in relation to these issues, Nike establishes itself as a socially responsibility corporation, as a symbol of collective progress and possibility” (p. 366).

Feminist consumerism does not typically center around more radical goals of feminism “such as decentering the role of beauty in women’s lives, processing negative emotions, or challenging men’s relationship with feminine beauty,” but instead on the main capitalist goal of purchase and profit (p. 961) [7] . “As such, feminist consumerism tends to obscure and minimize both structural and institutionalized gender inequalities that are difficult to resolve and that might cause negative emotional associations with brands,” which in turn would negatively affect sales and brand loyalty (p. 961) [7] . Similarly, Nike’s narrative of “just do it” “turns on a notion of individual choice that limits what and who we recognize. In this case, the conditions of everyday life are not so much challenged as they are reinforced.” (p. 366) [20] By not radically positioning their brand, a company ends up reinforcing the status quo instead of challenging it. In relation to the Dove campaign, Johnston and Taylor [7] conclude that the brand encourages women to engage in dissent by closely associating with corporate marketing campaigns and consumption behavior. They note that while accessible and positive on the surface, Dove’s “critique of beauty ideology is diluted by its contradictory imperative to promote self-acceptance and at the same time increase sales by promoting women’s consumption of products that encourage conformity to feminine beauty ideology (p.962).” They go on to mention that the campaign equates self-acceptance and beauty through the use of Dove products. Thus, Dove, while promoting a message is really promoting itself and encouraging consumption of “pro-beauty” products. Many argue that issues related to negative body image were brought about by corporate marketing campaigns – engaging women in a pursuit of perfection or alteration, facilitated by specifically marketed products.

Closely related, conceptually, to feminist consumerism and commodity feminism are cause-related marketing and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Brønn and Vrioni [21] state cause-related marketing as, “the process of formulating and implementing marketing activities that are characterized by contributing a specific amount to a designated non-profit effort that, in turn, causes customers to engage in revenue-providing exchanges… … to tie a company and its products to a cause. (p. 214)” They mention further that it is a mechanism to build equity and gain competitive advantage.

Barkay [22] explains “the new approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) stipulates that the pursuit and adoption of socially responsible practices are not simply the morally right thing to do but also a profitable business strategy (p. 279).” Likewise, Drumwright [23] posits that “there is not a company in the U.S. or the world that would spend money on advertising in a way that is not economic. The only reason, absolutely the only reason, that money is spent on advertising is to move people toward economic payoffs for the product and the company (p. 74).”

Brønn and Vrioni [21] contend that a corporation’s “association with a non-profit organization can generate positive media coverage, build a reputation of compassion and caring for a company, enhance its integrity, enhance employees’ motivation and productivity and consumers’ preferences (p. 212).” Cause-related marketing as a marketing strategy has proven to be successful. “One-third of Americans say that after price and quality, a company’s responsible business practices are the most important factor in deciding whether or not to buy a brand, and if price and quality are equal, they are more likely to switch to a brand which has a cause-related marketing benefit” (p. 212) [21] .

There may be clear positives to both the firm and society when embracing CSR and cause-related marketing, however, they may be overshadowed by the commodity feminism and feminist consumerism. When taken in tandem, all four concepts may underlie the core facets of the perception of genderwashing. On the surface a positive body image campaign may invoke the positive aspects of CSR and cause-related marketing, however, those positives may quickly become overshadowed when consumers are exposed to ads, by the same firm, who appears to have contrary messaging and strategic intent. Thus, concurrent promotional campaigns may reduce the use of the gender variable to a commodity.

As Johnston and Taylor [7] posit, feminist consumerism employs themes of empowerment to women but focuses on consumption as the primary source of affirmation and social change. This, too, is potentially problematic as they contend that this strategy may lead to avoidance of gender issues on a deeper, collective, consciousness-raising level. The ultimate goal of feminist consumerism is purchase and profit.

Given the fact that Unilever concurrently engages in promotional campaigns for Axe Body Spray, Fair & Lovely and Slim Fast (at the time of this study) as it does Dove, the idea that the “body positive” strategy may indeed be a type of “Defense Barrier” whereby criticism leveled against the firm is deflected, at least somewhat, by the Dove campaign. This idea of “defense” is based on the wealth of negative comments and perceptions about Axe, Fair & Lovely and Slim Fast that can be found in the course of examining discourse online. These publicly articulated negative thoughts and feelings go as far back as 2007. It could be that the Dove gender-oriented campaign is a strategy that not only looks to increase sales from a CSR/commodity feminism/consumer feminism perspective, but also assists in helping alter or compensate for negative perceptions about the firm for marketing products in tandem with controversial ads that have been criticized, for years, by many in the feminist community. Skin lightening cream and diet aids have been the target of many feminists for decades. Initiating a positive body image campaign allows the firm to deflect negative criticisms and attributions, at least somewhat. Brand equity lost in the mind of the consumer from one controversial campaign may be regained from another.

The Dove campaign came strongly out of the gate, challenging a wealth of gender-related norms. The campaign became an overnight success on social media and benefitted from a wealth of evangelizers. The campaign has been extolled in the popular and industry press. Upon further review, however, Unilever has found itself in a precarious situation, as, over time, literature has demonstrated clear issues below the surface of the campaign that relate to patriarchal expectations shaped by conventional beauty ideals [24] and the “exploitation” of participant labor as part of the social media strategy [25] . Further, it may be that the heart of the campaign’s strategy to stir deep brand loyalty is sullied, in the minds of some consumers, by its upholding of more traditionally-minded beauty myths and expectations in its products marketed overseas. This becomes even more troublesome for the parent firm when a campaign predicated on brand performance in social media [26] becomes potentially truncated and disrupted when the online community comes to the revelation that they’ve been deceived or that a truth has been obfuscated (that Axe Body Spray and Fair & Lovely are also under the Unilever umbrella) or that subsequent parts of a campaign are very problematic.

The case of Dove demonstrates some key similarities between the strategy some have labeled as “genderwashing” and the phenomena know as “greenwashing.” Delmas and Burbano [27] define greenwashing as a common scenario where firms mislead consumers about sustainability benefits inherent in an offered product or service; where there is intersection between poor environmental performance and positive communication about environmental performance. Additionally the practice may entail exaggerated information about firm environmental performance and/or concern. Even as some note that the process of greenwashing may have decreased since the 1990s [28] , Delmas and Burbano [27] found that greenwashing has deeply negative effects on consumer confidence. Going further, they also posit that the practice can harm investor confidence in the socially-responsible capital market and can open the firm to lawsuits and challenges from concerned organizations and government entities who believe they are being misled.

Consumers may find a similar intersection between poor or questionable gender-related performance and positive communication about gender-related performance when it comes to Dove. When taken with the fact that consumers, overwhelmed by CSR claims in today’s economy, have a difficult time identifying authentically responsible firms [29] firms accused of genderwashing may find themselves with particularly negative consequences that both erode consumer trust and add to more CSR-oriented clutter in the marketplace. More clutter and ambiguity in the CSR realm may lead to an inevitable turn away from CSR strategies as firms learn that the costs may not outweigh the benefits.

Ultimately, the discourse about the Dove campaign demonstrates that there is still a great deal of controversy surrounding the issue of gender and imagery in the world of marketing communications. Weight and female body image continue to become an area of concern and the slim female body continues to be the opposite of the modern-day example of idealized beauty [30] . Social marketing campaigns and cause-related marketing related to body image continue to be overly simplistic [31] and, potentially, short-sighted based on the importance many consumers, especially those in Gen Y [32] , place on the message. The Dove campaign, while very successful, may eventually lead to the parent brand’s demand as more consumers become informed of the connection between brands such as Axe and Dove – once largely hidden from the public – now more widely know.

• While there are certainly many who are critical of the Dove campaign, clearly the campaign has gained a great deal of traction and has been going strong many years in the media. Does the criticism negate the positives the campaign brings in terms of gender issues in today's consumer society?
• Could Dove improve the campaign and still have the same level of impact and ability to break through media clutter? If yes, how so? If no, explain why not.
• Is it possible for a for-profit firm to create a positive campaign that helps society but also assists the firm in gaining increased revenues or are these two goals really mutually exclusive in today's environment?
• Can mass media created by a for profit firm be a revolutionary tool?
• Jeffrey S. Podoshen, Department of Business, Organizations and Society, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA; Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, College of Business, Camden, New Jersey
• Sarah Wheaton, Department of Business, Organizations and Society, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA

When re-using this resource, please attribute as follows: Created and developed by Jeffrey S. Podoshen and Sarah Wheaton of Franklin and Marshall College. Support provided by Franklin and Marshall College Hackman Scholar's Program, the Open and Affordable Textbooks Project at Rutgers University, and Teagle Foundation.

• ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lagnado, S. (2004). Getting real about beauty. Advertising Age, 75 (49), 20. Retrieved from http://www.adage.com/
• ↑ 2.0 2.1 Neff, J. (2006). A real beauty: Dove’s viral makes big splash for no cash. Advertising Age, 77 (44), 1-45. Retrieved from http://www.adage.com/
• ↑ Toure, M. (2013). Unilever’s ‘Dove Real Beauty Sketches’ is the viral campaign of the year. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://www.adage.com/
• ↑ Joy, A. & Venkatesh, A. (1994). Postmodern, feminism and the body: The visible and the invisible in consumer research. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 11 (4), 333-357. doi:10.1016/0167-8116(94)90011-6
• ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Unilever. (2014). Real Beauty. In Our Mission. Retrieved from http://www . dove.us/Our-Mission/Real-Beauty/default.aspx/
• ↑ Etcoff, N., Orbach, S., Scott, J., & D’Agostino, H. (2004). The real truth about beauty: A global report. Dove, 1-47.
• ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 Johnston, J. & Taylor, J. (2008). Feminist consumerism and fat activists: A comparative study of grassroots activism and the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 33 (4), 941-966. doi: 10.1086/528849
• ↑ Griner, D. (2013). 5 Reasons Why Some Critics are Hating on Dove Real Beauty Sketches Video. Adweek, April 19, Retrieved from https://www.adweek.com/creativity/5-reasons-why-some-critics-are-hating-doves-real-beauty-sketches-video-148772/
• ↑ Harrison, P. (2008). How sincere is Dove? Deakin Business Review, 1 (1), 45-47. http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30019009
• ↑ 10.0 10.1 Neff, J. (2007). Unilever: Don’t let beauty get too real. Advertising Age, 78 (16), 1-42. Retrieved from http://www.adage.com/
• ↑ Neff, J. (2007). An onslaught against ‘Onslaught’: Dove viral draws heat from critics. Advertising Age, 78 (47), 3-28. Retrieved from http://www.adage.com/
• ↑ Mahdawi, A. (2014). How feminism became a great way to sell stuff. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/ .
• ↑ Pelley, V. (2014). 5 things Unilever could do to actually help women instead of making more insipid ‘Real Beauty’ videos. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://www.adage.com/
• ↑ Burke, M. (2011). Gender washing at Walmart. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-burk/gender-washing-at-walmart_b_964942.html
• ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Laufer, W. S. (2003). Social accountability and corporate greenwashing. Journal of Business Ethics, 43, 253-261. doi: 10.1023/A:1022962719299
• ↑ Ourahmoune, N., Binninger, A., & Robert, I. (2014). Brand narratives, sustainability, and gender: A socio-semiotic approach. Journal of Macromarketing, 34 (3), 313-341.doi:10.1177/0276146714528335
• ↑ Prothero, A. & Fitchett, J. (2000). Greening capitalism: Opportunities for a green commodity,” Journal of Macromarketing, 20 (1), 46-55. doi: 10.1177/0276146700201005
• ↑ Goldman, R., Heath, D., & Smith, S. L. (1991). Commodity feminism. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8 (3), 333-351. doi: 10.1080/15295039109366801
• ↑ Murray, D. P. (2013). Branding “real” social change in Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Feminist Media Studies, 13 (1), 83-101. doi: 10.1080/14680777.2011.647963
• ↑ 20.0 20.1 Cole, C. L., & Hribar, A. (1995). Celebrity feminism: Nike Style post-Fordism, transcendence, and consumer power. Sociology of Sport Journal, 12, 347-369.
• ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Brønn, P. S., & Vrioni, A. B. (2001). Corporate social responsibility and cause-related marketing: An overview. International Journal of Advertising, 20, 207-222. Retrieved from http://www.internationaljournalofadvertising.com
• ↑ Barkay, T. (2011). When business and community meet: A case study of Coca-Cola. Critical Sociology, 39 (2), 277-293. doi:10.1177/0896920511423112
• ↑ Drumwright, M. E. (1996). Company advertising with a social dimension: The role of noneconomic criteria. Journal of Marketing, 60, 71-87. Retrieved from http://www.ama.org/
• ↑ Lachover, E. & Brandes, S.B. (2009). A beautiful campaign? Analysis of public discourses in Israel surrounding the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, Feminist Media Studies, 9 (3), 301-316. doi: 10.1080/14680770903068266
• ↑ Duffy, B.E. (2010). Empowerment through endorsement? Polysemic meaning in Dove’s user-generated advertising, Communication, Culture and Critique, 3 (1), 26-43. doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2009.01056.x
• ↑ Singh, S. & Sonnenburg, S. (2012). Brand performance in social media. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 26 (4), 189-197. doi: 10.1016/j.intmar.2012.04.001
• ↑ 27.0 27.1 Delmas, M.A., & Burbano, V.C. (2011). The drivers of greenwashing. California Management Review, 54 (1), 64-87. Retrieved from http://haas.berkeley.edu/News/cmr/index.html
• ↑ Prothero, A., McDonagh, P. and Dobscha, S. (2010). “Is green the new black? Reflections on a green commodity discourse,” Journal of Macromarketing, 30 (2), 147-159. doi: 10.1177/0276146710361922
• ↑ Parguel, B., Benoit-Moreau, F., & Larceneux, F. (2011). How sustainability ratings might deter ‘greenwashing’: A closer look at ethical corporate communication. Journal of Business Ethics, 102 (1), 15-28. doi: 10.1007/s10551-011-0901-2
• ↑ LeBesco, K. (2004). Revolting bodies? The struggle to redefine fat identity. Amherst: University of Massachussettes Press.
• ↑ Gurrieri, L., Previte, J. & Brace-Govan, J. (2012). Women’s bodies as sites of control: Inadvertent stigma and exclusion in social marketing. Journal of Macromarketing, 33 (2), 128-143. doi:10.1177/0276146712469971
• ↑ Hyllegard, K., Yan, R., Ogle, J. & Attmann, J. (2010). The influence of gender, social cause, charitable support, and message appeal on Gen Y’s responses to cause-related marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 27 (1), 100-123.

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Changing stereotypes and people's view seems like an insurmountable task. Yet, some manage the impossible by changing the status quo and influencing our society. One of these changes was made by the company Dove, which decided to impact people's self-esteem and how society perceives beauty.

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It's no secret that people, particularly women, are highly critical of their perceptive beauty, as they compare it to the unrealistic standards of supermodels in the beauty industry. Dove acted to change that view and convince people that beauty doesn't come from one standard but in many forms and shapes. The company designed a long-term marketing strategy to change beauty stereotypes through its Dove Real Beauty Campaign. In this explanation, we will look closely at the origin of this marketing campaign, analyze some of its successes and failures, and finally see the results they have achieved today.

Dove Real Beauty Campaign Objectives

To put this marketing campaign into perspective, let's first talk about the origin of Dove. Dove was a soap bar company established in 1957 in the US. From the beginning, Dove was different from its competitor as it sold soaps that cleaned but also cleansed the skin. 1

Their competitive advantage was that their soap was much better for the skin as it made it softer and smoother while cleaning it, in contrast to their competitors' soap which attacked the skin to clean it. As a result, their product's popularity grew, and Dove already established the foundation of a company that thinks differently and cares for its customers.

The shift for Dove started in 2004 when they published a study they ordered from StrategyOne, a research firm based in New York: "The real truth about beauty: a global report." 2 With this study, Dove wanted to explore what beauty means to women and its reasoning. The study was conducted through a phone survey and interviewed 3,200 women aged 18 to 64 across ten countries. Following this study, Dove found that:

Only 2% of women call themselves "beautiful."

72% find their beauty "average."

68% strongly agreed that "the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can't ever achieve."

75% wished that "the media did a better job portraying women of diverse physical attractiveness – shape, and size."

Those were dreadful statistics, and this survey caused a dramatic shift in Dove's mission and marketing strategy. Dove wanted to change this status quo and create a beauty campaign to empower women's self-esteem by helping them feel more beautiful and changing the narrow view of what is considered beautiful by our society. So, in 2004, Dove launched its campaign for real beauty and founded the self-esteem project.

We believe beauty should be a source of confidence, and not anxiety. That's why we are here to help women everywhere develop a positive relationship with the way they look, helping them raise their self-esteem and realize their full potential. 3

Dove Real Beauty Campaign Analysis

Dove's real beauty campaign is neither short-term nor a one-time shot strategy. Instead, as it takes a lot of time and effort to change people's views, Dove adopted a long-term plan and implemented many marketing campaigns to create a narrative and build its brand over the years. As such, the credit for Dove's marketing campaign cannot be given to one person or only one institution but is the result of years of work from several marketers, researchers, and universities.

Dove Real Beauty Campaign: Real Women. Real Beauty

Dove's real beauty marketing campaign is an ongoing journey that started in 2004. At that time, beauty ads only showcased supermodels and modified pictures to glorify only one type of beauty. In partnership with the ad agency Ogilvy, Dove launched its first campaign by showing photographs of people on billboards who were not supermodels from beauty ads but regular people of all ages, shapes, and sizes. 4 These billboards were accompanied by a statement giving two choices to the people and inviting them to join the beauty debate :

"44 and hot? Or 44 and not? Can women be hotter at 44 than 20?"

"Flat or Flattering? Can you be sexy without being busty?"

"Fat or Fit? Does true beauty only squeeze into size 8?"

Under this beauty campaign, Dove also published a photograph of several smiling and laughing real women in white underwear. Those photographs appeared everywhere in women's magazines and on TV next to regular beauty ads, contrasting even more with their unrealistic beauty standards. Then, they became viral, and people talked about it on the radio and talk shows, fueling the debate and the narrative set by Dove.

The idea was for people to question what was considered beautiful in our society and realize that it does not have a specific characteristic but comes in different colors, forms, and shapes. This campaign tries to convince people that every woman is beautiful and should feel beautiful.

Dove Real Beauty Campaign: Evolution

In 2006 Dove launched the Evolution ad. This short video shows all the processes and evolution necessary to create a beauty campaign image. The clip starts with a woman taking a seat; we then see how make-up artists and hairdressers transform her to prepare for a photoshoot.

After the picture is taken, it is time for designers to modify the photograph by narrowing the nose, getting bigger eyes, erasing hairs, etc. Ultimately, the final picture is so different from reality that it does not even look like the model herself. At the end of the video, you can see this statement: "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted." 5

This ad shows that traditional media create a fake image of beauty that doesn't even look like the real person anymore and sets unrealistic standards of beauty that we can only achieve in a studio.

Dove Real Beauty Campaign: Beauty Sketches

In 2013 Dove launched the real beauty sketches campaign. The video starts with a woman sitting on a couch; next to her is an FBI artist specializing in sketching people's faces. They couldn't see each other, and the woman had to describe how she looked to the artist, and the artist would draw her face based on her description.

Once the artist finished the sketch, the model would go, and another person would come in. That newcomer would describe to the artist the first model that has just left, and the artist would have to do a new sketch of the first model based on the new description. Once the artist finished the drawings, they were placed next to each other. The result was that the first sketches were harsher and didn't represent a good image of reality.

Dove Real Beauty Campaign Controversy

Unfortunately, Dove's campaigns were not always successful. For example, in 2011, Dove launched its Visible Care body wash. In this campaign, we see three women with different skin colors draped in white towels and smiling. Behind them, on the left side, is an enlarged picture of what looks like dry skin with the notation "before" written on it. On the right side is an enlarged image of what looks like more smooth and soft skin with the note "after."

Although Dove claimed that the ad intended to illustrate all three women using the product with their smooth skin representing the "after" product benefit, many people interpreted the ad as the black woman representing the "before" and the white woman representing the "after." This campaign created huge controversy, after which Dove published an apology statement and removed the ad. 7

Dove's strategy evolved over the years, but its core mission stayed the same and was always about promoting women's self-esteem and helping them see themselves as beautiful. Determining the exact financial results of the Dove beauty campaign is difficult as Dove was also using traditional advertising methods that were not part of the Dove Beauty campaign and were creating sales. Dove concluded that its best strategy was to invest 60% of its marketing budget in building its brand and 40% in standard ad campaigns to push sales.

Dove Real Beauty Campaign Results

Although some mistakes were made along the way, there is no denying Dove's impressive results:

Word of mouth: as Dove broke beauty taboos, people discussed its campaigns everywhere. They were picked up by talk shows and radio, which gave Dove free marketing coverage valued at 150 million USD and increased its brand awareness. 4

People's view: Dove helped people identify themselves by promoting the beauty of regular people or showing how beauty ads distort reality. Through those ads, Dove improved people's self-esteem.

Brand recognition: Dove built a brand that is valued at 5.1 billion USD. 8

Dove Real Beauty Campaign - Key takeaways

• Dove analyzed women's real sentiments about beauty. Instead of conforming to the industry's standards, they promoted self-esteem and a new standard of beauty in different forms and shapes.
• Building a brand identity is not done overnight; it is something that evolves and takes years of effort.
• By breaking stereotypes and making the buzz, Dove received incredible free marketing coverage that helped strengthen the brand.
• Dove established itself as a brand that helps women's self-esteem, that makes beauty something people should be proud of and not a source of concern. As of today, Dove continues to grow women's self-esteem by promoting real beauty all over the world.
• Unilever. The Dove difference, Real Beauty, a compelling social mission. https://www.unilever.com/brands/beauty-wellbeing/dove
• Etcoff, Nancy, Orbach, Susie, Scott, Jennifer, and Heidi Agostino. THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT BEAUTY: A GLOBAL REPORT. 2004.
• Dove. Our vision. https://www.dove.com/my/stories/about-dove/our-vision.html#:~:text=We%20believe%20beauty%20should%20be,and%20realise%20their%20full%20potential.
• Marketing Week. Mark Ritson on how Dove challenged beauty industry stereotypes. 24/06/2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GirRXvVUR28
• Tim Piper. Evolution. 06/10/2006. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U
• Dove. Dove Real Beauty Sketches | You're more beautiful than you think (6mins). 14/04/2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE&t=325s
• Miller, James . "Dove body wash ad stirs controversy." 26/05/2011. https://www.today.com/style/dove-body-wash-ad-stirs-controversy-flna1c8368826
• Statista. "Brand value of Dove worldwide from 2016 to 2022." 01/05/2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010915/dove-brand-value-worldwide/

Frequently Asked Questions about Dove Real Beauty Campaign

--> what is the message of dove real beauty campaign.

There are multiple Real Beauty marketing campaigns, and all of them have a different message, but Dove has an underlying vision that is the same across all its campaigns: 

"We believe beauty should be a source of confidence, and not anxiety. That's why we are here to help women everywhere develop a positive relationship with the way they look, helping them raise their self-esteem and realize their full potential."

--> Was the Dove Real Beauty campaign successful?

Yes, Dove created a brand identity thanks to its marketing campaign that people can relate to. Dove also created buzz and got more than 150 million USD of free marketing coverage.

--> Who created the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty?

Dove and the ad agency Ogilvy created the Real Beauty Campaign.

--> When did Dove's Real Beauty campaign start?

Dove's Real Beauty campaign started in 2004 with the "Real Women. Real Beauty" ad.

--> How did dove advertise the real beauty campaign?

Dove launched its first campaign by showing photographs of people on billboards who were not supermodels from beauty ads but regular people of all ages, shapes, and sizes. Under this beauty campaign, Dove also published a photograph of several smiling and laughing real women in white underwear. Those photographs appeared everywhere in women's magazines and on TV next to regular beauty ads, contrasting even more with their unrealistic beauty standards. 

--> What is the Dove real beauty campaign?

Dove's real beauty campaign is neither short-term nor a one-time shot strategy. Dove adopted a long-term plan and implemented many marketing campaigns to create a narrative and build its brand over the years. The idea was to improve women's self-esteem by promoting women's real beauty and not the distorted reality created by the media.

According to the study about "The real truth about beauty: a global report" in 2004, what percentage of women call themselves "beautiful"? 

What is Dove's mission?

"We believe beauty should be a source of confidence and not anxiety. That's why we are here to help women everywhere develop a positive relationship with the way they look, helping them raise their self-esteem and realize their full potential."

Why was Dove's first beauty campaign so effective and popular?

Because Dove portrayed pictures of regular women of all ages, shapes, and sizes. In contrast to the beauty industry's unrealistic standards of beauty.

According to the 2006 Dove video clip "Evolution," why is our perception of beauty distorted?

Because the media create a fake perception of beauty with unrealistic means: hairdressers, make-up artists, graphic designers, etc.

What is the current value of Dove's brand?

5.1 billion USD

When was Dove established

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Dove Real Beauty Sketches Campaign

By: Matthew Thomson, Emily Goldberg, Ben Gottlieb, Samantha Landy, Samuel Solomon, Lindsay Sittler

This case discusses the future of the Dove brand and what type of advertising it should use moving forward. The brand has previously launched the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, which focuses on widening…

• Length: 6 page(s)
• Publication Date: May 14, 2014
• Discipline: Marketing
• Product #: W14163-PDF-ENG

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This case discusses the future of the Dove brand and what type of advertising it should use moving forward. The brand has previously launched the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, which focuses on widening the definition of beauty. Students are given the history of the campaign and are asked to assess various options for the Dove brand.

Learning Objectives

The purpose of the case is to teach students about the characteristics that contributed to the success of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, specifically with the "Dove Real Beauty Sketches" video, and to explore the non-traditional techniques used to achieve said success. This case is intended for advertising and/or marketing classes.

May 14, 2014

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W14163-PDF-ENG

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Dove Campaign for Real Beauty (public relations case study)

The campaign objective

This campaign aimed to challenge the conventional standards of beauty in the media and society and to celebrate the diversity and natural beauty of women of all ages, shapes, sizes, and ethnicities.

The public relations tactics

The campaign included the following public relations tactics:

– Creating a website that featured real women’s stories, photos, and videos, as well as tips and resources on self-esteem and body image

– Producing a series of advertisements that featured real women, not models, posing in their underwear and showing their flaws and imperfections

– Launching a viral video called Evolution, which showed the transformation of a woman’s face through makeup, lighting, and Photoshop, to reveal the unrealistic expectations of beauty in the media.

– Partnering with various organizations and experts, such as the Girl Scouts, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and the Self-Esteem Fund, to create educational programs and workshops for girls and women on self-esteem and body image.

– Conducting global surveys and research on women’s attitudes and perceptions of beauty, and publishing the results in the Dove Global Beauty and Confidence Report.

The campaign was very successful in generating positive publicity, awareness, and engagement for the brand, as well as sparking a social movement and conversation about the issue of beauty and self-esteem.

The campaign also increased the sales and market share of Dove products and earned numerous awards and recognition from the industry and the public.

The campaign is considered one of the most influential and impactful public relations campaigns of the 21st century.

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A case study in integration: The Dove Campaign For Real Beauty

This case study was submitted by Alex Waldron of One Green Bean . To submit a case please email [email protected]  for the guidelines.

The Dove Campaign For Real Beauty was developed globally by Ogilvy, with a number of agencies around the world responsible for the ongoing local adaptation and implementation of above- and below-the-line communications, media and PR.

Locally the agencies involved in the ongoing implementation of the Campaign For Real Beauty were: Brand: Dove Client: Unilever Australasia Creative: Singleton Ogilvy and Mather Media: Universal McCann Online: Singleton Ogilvy Interactive PR: One Green Bean

In 2005, Dove commissioned a global study based on the hypothesis that women have a narrow definition of beauty. The global study – The Real Truth About Beauty – found that only a startling 2% of women describe themselves as beautiful, and served as the foundation for the now award winning Campaign for Real Beauty.

Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty was launched to help widen the definition of beauty and offer a more diverse representation than the stereotypical images that women and girls are bombarded with every day. Through this global initiative, Dove has boldly defied society’s traditional images, and celebrated the beauty of women of different shape, size, colour and age because the brand believes this can widen the definition of beauty.

To take this mission a step further, Dove established the Dove Self-Esteem Fund to provide positive solutions to young people globally, and inspire a greater sense of self-worth. Famous for the powerful viral films Evolution, Onslaught and Amy, the Dove Self Esteem Fund also works in several markets around the world funding the implementation of a groundbreaking program called BodyThink through partnering with a local charity.

Implemented locally by The Butterfly Foundation, BodyThink provides a tool for teachers and youth workers to help young people put the modern beauty world into perspective, be more media literate and learn how to foster a healthy sense of self esteem.

BodyThink is delivered to teachers and youth workers for them to pass on to young people in the most practical way for that group. An entirely flexible package of stimulus material, BodyThink also contains a compelling DVD shot by UK photographer, Rankin, exposing the trickery behind the images used in fashion shoots, films and music clips.

The Dove Self Esteem Fund aim is to educate and inspire young people on a wider definition of beauty through a variety of activities and programs, the main being BodyThink. The engagement target for 2008 was to reach and teach 45,000 young people with BodyThink across Australia via education to teachers, youth and community workers.

Internationally, through partnerships with eating disorder, youth, and educational institutions in more than 40 countries throughout Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, the Fund’s ambition is to touch the lives of 5 million young people with its educational programs by 2010.

Dove and The Butterfly Foundation continued to implement the global strategy, using publicity and powerful viral videos to create awareness and generate word of mouth of the Dove Self Esteem Fund and the BodyThink program. Direction to www.campaignforrealbeauty.com.au allowed interested teachers and youth workers to make requests for training directly to The Butterfly Foundation.

Following a highly successful launch in 2006, the BodyThink program attracted significant media and consumer interest, especially in Victoria where the state government also financially assisted the implementation of the program. This led to substantial interest and high demand for BodyThink training sessions from Victoria that The Butterfly Foundation continued to supply. In addition to Victorian activity, The Butterfly Foundation also implemented training sessions in NSW, TAS, QLD and WA, extending the national reach of the program in 2008.

Through a partnership with the Girl Guides Australia, The Butterfly Foundation also conducted their first training session in the Northern Territory, where they engaged over 25 Guide leaders.

By the end of 2008, over 825 education, youth and community professionals had received BodyThink training enabling them to pass the program on to more than 50,000 young people, exceeding the organisation’s target by 5,000. Qualitative feedback from teachers and students was overwhelmingly positive, stating the program was enjoyable, enlightening and effective.

These results further position the Australian BodyThink activity as a global best practice example based on the popularity and success of implementation to date. Currently no other market has engaged a higher number of young people than that of Australia.

To add independent support and validity, the largest annual survey of Australia’s youth, Mission Australia’s National Survey of Young Australians 2008, recorded a reduction in the body image concerns of 11-14 year olds, with the charity crediting education initiatives like BodyThink program and the work of The Butterfly Foundation as being contributing factors in this reduction.

The efficacy of BodyThink is also currently undergoing independent testing in a study being undertaken by researchers at La Trobe University. Results from this study will help shape the future content and implementation of this pioneering program.

For more information please visit www.campaignforrealbeauty.com.au.

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Case Study of Dove and their campaign for Real Beauty

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