Dove Marketing Analysis Essay

Imagine you have oversight of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. Are you comfortable with what is going on? Is this a brand that is out of control with its promotional messages? Dove released its first advertising on 1957, in which Dove called its product as â€Å"cleaning cream† instead of soap. After that, Dove launched some advertising to emphasized on its functional feature. In 2000, Dove became a Masterbrand of Unilever. In other words, it had to establish a meaning for Dove that could apply to and extend over the entire stable of products. In order to stand for a point of view, â€Å"The Campaign for Real Beauty† began to process. Then campaign focus on the self-esteem and confidence instead of appearances, it still could be include into female field. Just from external to inner, So Dove is not out of control with its promotional message. In my opinion, I am comfortable with Dove’s campaign due to the following reasons. First, Dove more concerned about women’s feeling and inner spirit. When the advertising plays too many shots on the beauty of girls, sometimes, the values and aesthetic of the society will be influence. Women and teenager girls would pay more money and time to fit their body. Therefore, Dove’s advertising will not add this misleading. Second, Dove choose YouTube and Blog as the major platform, it is a wise and trendy choice. Internet plays more and more important role in the modern life, especially the raise of the social networking. In the future, Dove has more opportunities to attract public and ahead of other companies. Third, Dove always guarantees the quality of ads. Their advertising is not a simple product promotion, but some interesting story and conversation. The products of Dove even do not need to be photographed. The consumers will remember such high-quality ad and are willing to share with others. Moreover, Dove’s Real Beauty campaign built a buzz and was widely exposed. People actively discussed the campaign through Internet and TV shows, even famous celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Jay Leno talked about it in their TV shows. Though there were many parodies in the Internet, they were funny and generated more attentions on the brand. Last but not least, the campaign was contributed to the brand’s business growth and values. In 2006, Landor Associates identified Dove was one of the 10 brands with the greatest ercentage gain in brand health and business values. 2. Is Dove’s attempt to engender social engagement through its promotional campaigns too risky an endeavor given its lack of control over consumer parody and accusations of trying to sell under the pretense of contributing to the social good? In the business, every decision faced the profit and risk. Generally, th e greater the risks result in the greater rewards. The risks are as follow: Through the investigation, Dove found out that many women had discontent with the â€Å"young, white blonde and thin† models, because they could not attain that standard. Dove started the advertisement â€Å"Campaign for Real Beauty†, underlining their products will â€Å"feel better†, while other company always publicize â€Å"look beautiful† in the commercial. The risk is that whether or not the consumers understand and accept that change. On next stage, Dove was a very controversial event. Billboards were erected to vote on whether a woman on the billboard was â€Å"outsized† or â€Å"outstanding†. A counter showed the result. As a beauty brand, this campaign will attract public attention; simultaneously will challenge the brand cognitive. What’s more, Dove broke the traditional rule in the company and go forward without paid media at all. YouTube become the most important platform instead of television. When Dove made this decision, the risk is that maybe they will lose some traditional and classical consumers. Facing the negative responses, Dove did not ignore them, but positive embrace them. The company list both view in other medias and allow public to discuss these. They also sent interactive packages to media outlets to help spur the debate. Finally, Unilever established the global Dove Self-Esteem Fund to raise the self-esteem of girls and young women. Such activities give a support to the â€Å"Real Beauty†. Dove’s public relations channel strategy was to generate broad awareness for â€Å"The Campaign for Real Beauty† and establish an emotional connection with women. Therefore, a political figure or a major news organization or even a film is not as influence as an open dialogue. 3. After reviewing the blogs, what do the various discussions contribute to the meaning of the brand? There are mainly two opinions exists among the blogs. The supporters considered Dove’s Real Beauty campaign was an emotional touch from Dove to consumer. They thought the campaign has shed light on some important truths about the media’s unrealistic portrayals of women, and it’s important and necessary to send a health beauty message to the society. However, the criticisms thought that Dove is hypocritical and the campaign is just aimed to sell more products and gain more profits. The reason they thought Dove is hypocritical is because Dove comes from Unilever, which promotion young, thin and sexy woman in the Axe’s advertisements. They also criticized Dove’s advertisements had many untruthful details and inconsistent. What’s more, they thought the campaign has no major aspirational values attached to the product and was undermining the aspiration of consumers. Regardless of these different opinions towards the Real Beauty campaign, Dove’s brand name has successfully gone viral and drew a lot of attentions worldwide. People were spreading quickly the message of â€Å"Real Beauty† and they still continuously discuss it nowadays. This kind of exposure has extraordinary impact of Dove’s brand awareness and popularity. Therefore, it contributed to the brand’s long-term value and equity. Though there were many parodies exits in the Internet, for ordinary consumers, they might just remember how funny and interesting the parodies were, as well as the appealing â€Å"real beauty† messages that Dove tried to spread. It was a risk strategy for Dove, but as long as Dove manages its public relations and other advertisements carefully, consumers would still like Dove’s affordable good-quality products. The increasing sales growth of Dove could be a strong argument for it. Moreover, I think Dove was trying to be an inspirational brand to inspire positive self image among women. It successfully differentiated itself to other competitors. The Dove Self-Esteem Fund program was a plus to win over customers’ hearts. 4. Describe Dove’s brand management organization and the reason for it. Do you see any problems or issues that will result with this split-responsibility setup? In 2000, Dove was selected to be a Masterbrand and lent its name to Unilever entries in personal care categories. There are two split-responsibility groups in Dove’s brand management organization: Brand Development and Brand Building. Brand Development group charged with development of the brand, took responsibility for developing the idea behind the brand, developed the brand plan. It was accountable for medium-to long-term market share, for brand health, for measures of innovativeness, and for creating value in the category. It was centralized and global in scope. The other group Brand Building charged with building the brand in specific markets and was decentralized according to the major geographic regions in which Unilever operated. It was accountable for growth, profit, cash flow, and short-term market share. It managed public relations and informal communication. The pros of this split-responsibly setup brand management system are that the advertising messages could be more tailored to different markets. However, the problem might result with this split-responsibly system is the inconsistent management of the brand image. It’s a challenge for the two groups to balance between short-term values and long-term values for the brand. For example, the Brand Building group might develop an aggressive public relations strategy to generate attention in order to gain short-term market share, which might not be a smart move to build the brand’s long-term value and gain long-term market share.