Dove campaign

Introduction
In the present time culture convinces us the real beauty of people is body`s beauty. Women are encouraged to invest in their bodies through diets, choosing proper life style, exercising and purchasing cosmetics which correct natural beauty. That`s one of ways to reach a paragon of beauty. The main role of creating healthy, young and skinny image plays media, specially advertising. Principal goal of advertising is building brand image and persuade customers for buying product, but its also one of the most important instruments which create and reproduce image which women identify. In short, advertisements create idealized version of women`s body and stereotypical view of beauty. In 2004 cosmetic brand Dove launched a new advertising campaign called Dove`s Campaign for Real Beauty. That`s one of the most successful marketing campaign which revolutionised stereotypes of beauty. In this assignment I will discuss a few questions about this campaign. The first is why Dove`s campaign was so successful. I`ll try answer how the campaign is different from traditional cosmetic brand campaign and also consider the key weaknesses of Dove`s marketing strategy. I also try to answer what segmentation Dove used to target their consumers.
Why Dove`s campaign for `Real Beauty` was so successful as a marketing strategy?
The ‘Real Beauty’ campaign was great planned from the beginning. Before it was started, Dove conducted a global study on beauty. Research called The Real Truth About Beauty was a way to discover what beauty means to women. The study revealed that just 12% of researched women are very satisfied with their body attractiveness and only 2% think about themselves as `beautiful. What`s more 68% agree that media shows an unrealistic standard of beauty. These findings gave Dove credibility in creating campaign and supported Dove`s mission “to make more women feel beautiful everyday by widening stereotypical views of beauty.” The study helped Dove to understand women feelings across the world of different cultures. “They connected on an emotional and personal level with women of many nationalities, races, beliefs, sizes and ages.”
The campaign has begun by TV commercials. The ad agency, Oglivy&Mather, which devised this campaign, chose creative and innovative way. To front of the campaign, instead of beautiful models or celebrities, they used `real` women from the street. Those six ladies ranged in age from 22 to 96 and a covered a variety of sizes.”One was working at the Gap, another was a student, a third was a barista.” Their body imperfections have been changed in advantage and dispelled stereotypical view of beauty. Dove chose women which look as potential consumers of its products, what means they are similar to most women on the world. That`s great solution, women can identify with them and this way more willing buy offered products. What`s more every ad raised some questions as Oversized? Outstanding? Half empty? Half full? Ugly spots? Beauty spots? (picture1) and aimed readers and viewers at campaign website (www.campaignforbeauty.com) where they could vote on them. In addition the website allows women to find information about next campaign steps, downloading research about beauty and biography of models from ads. They can also reading there what women on the world have to say that`s way builds kind of women community. Advertising campaign was supported by placing mobile billboards in main cities. Each billboard showed women in different body shapes, sizes, colour of skin and race.
Excellent idea was launched the Dove Self-Esteem Fund to help free young girls from “self-limiting beauty stereotypes. Dove funds programs for raising self-esteem in girls and young women. The brand also work as a partnership of the Girl Scouts of the USA, helps girls in age 8-14 build their confidence through activities and programs. Dove proved to be really involved in changing stereotypes of beauty and help women to believe in their own beauty. Innovative step was showing during the 2005 Super Bowl game an ad with young girls talking about their self-esteem. That was absolutely not typical for Super Bowl, but attracted attention and paid with great PR triumph. Meanwhile Dove also used viral marketing to promote social aspect of campaign. Short movies, as Evolution, Onslaught or Through Her Eyes and True Colours, were spreading on You Tube to convince us how computer programs can change ordinary women in beautiful model. They`re also pay attention to psychological problems like anorexia, bulimia or self-confidence what substantiated campaign.
Using free media was excellent success. The You Tube Dove “movie – ads” has brought more attention than Super Bowl film. They have been seen more than three million times.
Next step of campaign was also very striking and shocking to the eyes. Dove launched a new series of products targeted to aging women, called Pro-Age. In this campaign Dove has engaged “real women” over 50 and let them pose naked. This product line and campaign showed that “beauty has no age limit” and women can be beauty no matter how old they are. That`s a huge revolution in advertising world for the beauty products directed to older women. Dove positioned itself “as the first global beauty brand talk to women about aging in a positive tone”. These words confirms ProAge commercial which ends with the sentence the ad “isn`t anti-age, this is proage”. It means, Dove doesn`t promote age-defying cosmetics, Dove`s products help to feel beauty in this age.

The timing of this campaign couldn`t have been better. That was the perfect moment to enter the market. Women were tired of being treated less beautiful in order for company to sell their beauty products. Dove said enough and has shattered that view and brought a breath of fresh air in the beauty industry. The campaign has broken the stereotype of size zero, blond, perfect model. The Dove company did also good job of controlling how their campaign was presented. Media coverage corresponded with information sent out as the message from Dove. That`s was well organized as well. Every next step of it continued the same way and was complementary

How Dove`s campaign for ‘Real Beauty differs from traditional cosmetic brand campaigns?

That`s obvious Dove`s campaign is different to others cosmetic brands. It`s beauty campaign that “touched a cultural nerve by challenging the current super-thin, silky-hair, perfect skin standard”. The best way to find out differences is comparing with others cosmetic commercials.
Most of cosmetics ads, it could be even said all of them, continue stereotypical view of beauty. If we look at advertising brands we can see women extremely beautiful, which actually don`t need cosmetic they advertise. In addition, many of chosen models are well-known celebrities. The last L`oreal hair shampoo ad presents Cheryl Cole which advertises Elvive 5 shampoo restores “hair`s shine & silky feel”. In TV commercial singer says: `My hair feels stronger, full of life, replenished with a healthy shine. It’s got its mojo back.' However Cheryl is known to use hair extensions! In an interview for Hello! magazine she admitted to have artificial hair: 'I have hair extensions that are the same length as my hair but for extra body. They help my hair to stay looking good without constantly needing to be done. I couldn't think of anything worse than being on a judging panel for 14 hours a day and constantly having to have my hair re-bouffed.' It couldn`t be more ridiculous and misleading advertising.

On the other hand the Axe commercials are full of sexual allusions and focus on gorgeous women which cannot resist men who use Axe. One of Axe “Effect” campaign ads, Women-Billions, features thousands of half-naked, perfect-body women running through forest, swimming through sea just to get to man which use Axe body spray. Lynx “Touch” commercial produces view of a man plays with radio set when unexpectedly the nipples of woman who sits close to him are seen hardening through her blouse. Then, when he opens a book, another women`s blouse opening and her breast are almost being displayed. The sexual content is implicit, yet direct. Women in these ads are obvious example of conventional view of beauty.
What about Dove`s commercials? Dove wants to convince they are definitely different from the other cosmetic industry. Like has been presented before, Dove`s ads used ordinary women, with realistic body shapes. No models, no celebrities. No sex appeals, just natural bodies’ beauty. It`s beauty which has many faces. In addition, the company made use of social advertising. “Onslaught” commercial is a short-document which present young girl bombarded with “images of impossible to obtain beauty”. The video comments how beauty industry sales their products and how it effect young girls and women. In the end of this movie appear the words: “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does”. There are no any Dove products in this ad, just it ends with a logo of Dove Self Esteem Fund. But obviously, this is part of “Real Beauty” campaign and associates Dove cosmetics with social mission.
What is the key weaknesses of Dove`s marketing strategy, if any?
The Dove`s campaign was a very smart, worthwhile and rational one. But it wasn`t clear and honest as we could expect. The company was gently playing on women`s insecurities, for sure. The brand was trying to convince them the perfect body is not important, they looked perfect just the way they are. So why the company sale firming and slimming body lotions and why would the women buy them? What`s more, Pascal Dangin, master of photographic retouch, (who works regularly for Vogue, Dior, and many others) said about the Dove project in The New Yorker:
``Do you know how much retouching was on that? But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”
Of course, Annie Leibovitz, the author of photos in the campaign, rejected these objections immediately. But if you looked at girls carefully, you couldn`t notice they were still extraordinary beautiful, they had a straight white teeth, smooth skin with no visible spots and perfect features.
Dove looses reliability also because of its parent company - Unilever. The firm manufacture AXE Body Spray, Lynx as well as the Slim fast line of products. That`s obvious its ad use gender stereotypes and traditional standards of beauty. The question is how Unilever can really be honest with Real beauty campaign which promoting self-esteem among and in the same time produce campaign as Lynx “Touch”.
What segmentation bases would be the most appropriate for Dove to use in order to target their consumers?
One of segmentation bases is demographic segmentation which “dividing the market to demographic factors, namely age, sex and income”[Rogan D., 2007, 141] like also education, religion or generation. It seems, Dove used combination two of those factors – gender and age. All products promoted by ‘Real Beauty’ campaign are intended to women. As every step of campaign presents, the target are all women, all ages and of all sizes. Moreover, Dove launched two product lines Dove`s new and Dove ProAge. The first one targeted women in 20-50 age the second women in their later years, over 50.

Conclusion
The Dove`s campaign has become one of the most successful in the history of marketing. Within six month, sales of Dove`s firming products increased of 700 per cent in Europe, and in US for 600 per cent for first two months. The global sales exceeded the $1 billion mark in 2004. Success of this campaign has changed Dove`s position in cosmetic world. Dove has extended to global beauty brand and one of Unilever`s master brands. What`s more Dove really has began world discussion about the definition of beauty and has changed Dove`s identity. Dove has been accepted as a brand that supports natural beauty. Dove products began associated with concept of real beauty.
Of course, that kind of marketing idea can be questionable. Brian Collins, the executive creative director of BIG (Brand Integration Group), once told: “While some people love the campaign, others think it doesn`t go far enough in challenging the status quo, and some feel that the ads still rely too heavily on using sex to sell.” However, the great success proved that was a very smart way to sell skin care products to women. It has been also a PR triumph for Dove, getting media attention and applause from many women.