Case Analysis: Dove
CASE ANALYSIS Dove: Evolution of a brand
INTRODUCTION
Unilever’s Dove is one of the leading companies in the health and beauty industry. Dove has launched an advertising campaign named “The Campaign for Real Beauty” to general the attention of the public in order to change the traditional definition of beauty and improve their brand awareness. Dove took the advantages of new social media by uploading the advertisements on YouTube and allowed people to give comments on the “Real Beauty” story. The advertising endorsement of this campaign was different from the normal advertising campaign in this industry. For example, Dove hired some normal or even slightly over-sized women instead of celebrities as their models to ask the pubic to define whether it is oversized or outstanding. As the matter of fact, this campaign successfully attracted the public attention but it still has certain potential risks. In that case, should the Unilever continue the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty? My answer is positive but with certain reservations due to the fact that the campaign didn’t properly response the issue of culture differences in the global environment. In the following essay, I will analyse the situation and provide some suggestions to illustrate my point of view.
SITUATIONAL DIAGNOSIS - Should Unilever continue the “Campaign for Real Beauty”?
Nature of the Problem
The Campaign for Real Beauty indeed achieved the brand awareness and broke people’s tradition definition of real beauty. However this campaign was controversial to the board of directors of Unilever. From one hand, some people hold the view that this advertising campaign was effective due to the fact that it improved the sales volume of Dove product by increasing the public product awareness. From another hand, some other people argued that this advertising campaign would be too risky for Unilever to continue and suggested that it might receive negative outcome in Asian countries. Because the culture
INTRODUCTION
Unilever’s Dove is one of the leading companies in the health and beauty industry. Dove has launched an advertising campaign named “The Campaign for Real Beauty” to general the attention of the public in order to change the traditional definition of beauty and improve their brand awareness. Dove took the advantages of new social media by uploading the advertisements on YouTube and allowed people to give comments on the “Real Beauty” story. The advertising endorsement of this campaign was different from the normal advertising campaign in this industry. For example, Dove hired some normal or even slightly over-sized women instead of celebrities as their models to ask the pubic to define whether it is oversized or outstanding. As the matter of fact, this campaign successfully attracted the public attention but it still has certain potential risks. In that case, should the Unilever continue the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty? My answer is positive but with certain reservations due to the fact that the campaign didn’t properly response the issue of culture differences in the global environment. In the following essay, I will analyse the situation and provide some suggestions to illustrate my point of view.
SITUATIONAL DIAGNOSIS - Should Unilever continue the “Campaign for Real Beauty”?
Nature of the Problem
The Campaign for Real Beauty indeed achieved the brand awareness and broke people’s tradition definition of real beauty. However this campaign was controversial to the board of directors of Unilever. From one hand, some people hold the view that this advertising campaign was effective due to the fact that it improved the sales volume of Dove product by increasing the public product awareness. From another hand, some other people argued that this advertising campaign would be too risky for Unilever to continue and suggested that it might receive negative outcome in Asian countries. Because the culture
References: Agence France-Press (2007) ‘Beauty is defined as a waist” viewed 7th November 2012< http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/961/beauty-defined-a-waist> Clegg, A (2005) ‘Dove Gets Real’ viewed 7th November 2012 <http://w ww.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=259> Deighton, J (2008) ‘Dove: Evolution of a Brand’ HBS 9-508-047, 25 March.