Dove:

Evolution of a Brand Submitted By

Kamalesh Roy
16021141051

June 27, 2017 Submitted To

Dr. Tanmoy De
1. What was Doves market positioning in the 1950s? What is its positioning in 2007?

Dove was launched in 1957 with its first product as a beauty bar with a claim that it would not
dry out your skin the way soap did, because it was not technically soap at all. The formula
was coined from military research with an objective to find a non-irritating skin cleaner for
use on burns and wounds, and contained high level of skin moisturizers. Ogilvy and Mather
positioned dove with the message that Dove does not dry your skin because its one-quarter
cleansing cream and the claim was illustrated with photographs that showed cream being
poured into a tablet. The communication was solidified through television, print, and
billboards making Dove one of Americas most recognizable brand icons.
In the following years, some minor changes were made in the slogan like the term cleansing
cream was replaced with moisturizing cream but the proposition of Dove, not to dry skin
remained same, and the refusal to call itself a soap continued for over 40 years. The bottom-
line of the positioning was to project honesty and authenticity, preferring to have natural-
looking women testifying to Doves benefits rather than stylized fashion models. Until 2000,
the brand depended on claims of functional superiority backed by the products moisturizing
benefit.
Under the initiative Path to Growth, Dove was tapped to become a Masterbrand in February
2000. In that role it was called on to lend its name to Unilever entries in personal care
categories beyond the beauty bar category, such as deodorants, hair care products, facial
cleansers, body lotions, and hair styling products. While much of the advertising for these
entrants spoke about functional benefits, communication to build Masterbrand needed to do
something different-it had to establish a meaning for Dove that could apply to and extend
over the entire stable of products. Dove now being an umbrella brand could no longer
communicate mere functional benefits as functionality meant different things in different
categories. With a search for point of view that Dove should stand for, several research and
consultations led Unilever to reach at The Campaign for Real Beauty. Dove had embarked
on a mission to debunk the dream that supermodel beauty was within your grasp. Dove risked
its multi-billion dollar asset to challenge the beauty industry which as claimed by Dove was
portraying an unattainable and stereotypical image of beauty. Dove as a Masterbrand
completely revamped its positioning, under real beauty campaign, Doves claimed to make
more women feel beautiful everyday by broadening the narrow definition of beauty and
inspiring them to take great care of themselves. As per Dove, the notion of beauty was not
elitist. It is celebratory, inclusive and democratic.

2. How did Unilever organize to do product category management and brand management in
Unilever before 2000? What was the corresponding structure after 2000? How was brand
meaning controlled before 2000 and how is it controlled at the time of the case?

Unilever was formed in 1930 when the U.K based Lever Brothers combined with the Dutch
Margarine Unie, a logical merger given the both companies depended on palm oil, one for
soaps and the other for edible oil products. Unilever initially followed marketing in a manner
similar to Procter & Gamble, known as the brand management system. Within a product
category the firm often offered multiple brands, each led by a brand manager. In effect, each
brand operated as a separate business, competing with its siblings as wells as products of
other firms. A staff of brand assistants executed the policies of the brand manager. Each
brand manager was charged with the responsibilities of a general manager in relation to the
brand, including design of strategy, delivery of profit targets, and power over many of the
day-to-day marketing decisions such as advertising and trade promotions that were needed
to achieve profitability. Unilever operated on every continent and had particular strengths in
India, Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. It described itself as combining local roots
with global scale. Global decentralization brought strengths through diversity, but also
problems of control. The companys brand portfolio had grown in a relatively laissez-faire
manner which created checkered identities.
In February 2000 Unilever embarked on a five-year strategic initiative called Path to
Growth. An important part of this initiative was a plan to winnow its more than 1600 brands
down to 400. Among the surviving brands, a small number would be selected as
Masterbrands, and mandated to serve as an umbrella identities over a range of product
forms. Unilever changed the structure of management by building a global brand unit for
each Masterbrand, entrusted with responsibility for creating its global vision and charged
with inspiring cooperation from all geographic markets. The responsibility for a brand was
split between two groups, one charged with development of the brand and the other charged
with building the brand in specific markets. Brand Development was centralized and global in
scope. Brand Building was decentralized according to major geographic regions in which
Unilever operated.
Brand Development took responsibility for developing the idea behind a brand, for
innovation, and for brand health, for measures of innovativeness, and for creating value in
the category. It had responsibility for television advertising strategy, and for deciding which
non-traditional media the brand should explore. It developed a brand plan and usually
located in the region where the brand was strongest.
Brand building was replicated in each of Unilevers major markets around the world.
Managers in the brand-building chain of command were charged with bringing the brand to
life in their marketplace. They were accountable for growth, profit, cash flow, and short-term
market share. Syncing to the mission of brand development, they had freedom to use
imagination to break through their particular markets media clutter. They managed public
relations and informal communications, made decisions on what level of spending to put
behind the media advertising campaigns that they received from brand development. Brand
builders reported to general manager for a collection of brands, who in turn reported to a
country or a region manager.
3. Spend a little time searching blogs, using Google Blog Search, Technorati, BlogRunner, or
any other blog search engines, to get a sense of what people are saying about Dove today.
What does this discussion contribute to the meaning of the brand?

Dove by 2006 had grown into $1.2 billion brand and much of the growth was attributable to
its extension and to The Campaign for Real Beauty. The Campaign had touched a nerve with
the public and has been called a lot of things, from a game changer and a breath of fresh
air, to hypocritical, sexist, and sneaky. The campaign, whose major innovation was to
use ads that featured real women rather than airbrushed models or celebrity spokespersons,
has sparked several controversies. Blogs and media have been attempting to address the
good and the bad side of Doves Campaign. The main message of the Dove campaign was that
womens unique differences should be celebrated, rather than ignored, and that physical
appearance should be transformed from a source of anxiety to a source of confidence.
Looking at the positive or good side of the campaign, it initiated a global conversation to
widen the definition of beauty. The main issue being targeted was the repetitive use of
unrealistic, unattainable images, which consequently pose restrictions on the definition of
beauty. Dove sought to change the culture of advertising by challenging beauty stereotypes;
they selected real women whose appearances are outside the stereotypical norms of beauty
(e.g., older women with wrinkles, overweight women). The real women were attractive and
likeable to their female audience because they were relatable and provided a fresh
perspective within the media. Beyond simply making people feel good about the company,
what Dove has so successfully done is reframe the function of purchasing their beauty
products and toiletries from one focused on utilitarian outcomes (such as the quality and
price of the products things that are virtually never mentioned in the ads) to one that is
focused on expressing important values and connecting with others.
Despite the immense popularity and commercial success of the campaign, it has also been
subject to much criticism. Many critics have relentlessly questioned and brought into focus
the campaigns mixed messages, which have left some consumers feeling ambivalent
towards the Dove brand. On the one hand, the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty can be viewed
as espousing a positive message, with the goal of changing womens attitudes toward their
perception of beauty. On the other hand, consumers are also aware of the campaigns
conflicting goal, one that is imperative and alike to all advertising campaigns, which is to
increase sales. Dove's critics were quick to point out that the brand's owner, Unilever, was the
parent company of Slimfast, Axe and Fair & Lovely skin-whitening cream, which raised a
question of authenticity about "real beauty" coming from a corporation that sells diet
products and advertises men's body spray with sexist tropes about women. A second criticism
leveled at Dove is that its cosmetic products feed into women's insecurities. Jennifer Pozner,
executive director of Women In Media & News and author of Reality Bites Back: The Troubling
Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV, believes that Dove's message is at odds with its products,
and that the company is capitalizing on women's poor body images. Her expression was, If
the stated goal of the Dove Real Beauty Campaign is for girls and women to understand that
 their power and their beauty does not come from a tube or an airbrush or a cream, but rather
from their own personalities and power, then the company would not sell certain products
that they sell, and their parent company would not run some of the most misogynistic ad
campaigns in the past ten years. The discussions can be concluded by one statement as said
by Barbara Kahn a professor at Wharton Business School and author of Global Brand Power
"Unilever is famously a house of brands and not a branded house, and its costly to do that,
because you have to build up each brand name independently."

4. Endnote 1 of the case leads you to a blogger who asks, with reference to the age of
YouTube advertising, Is marketing now cheap, fast and out of control? Endnote 2 refers to
Dove as having started a conversation that they dont have control of. In When Tush
comes to Dove, Seth Stevenson writes about the risky bet that Dove is making. Do you
see risks for the Dove brand today (Case Timeline)?

Dove as a Masterbrand pursued more of femvertising instead of advertising. With its

campaign for real beauty, Dove builds the image of a brand with ideas and point of view
on the society. Dove was the first in the industry to promote controversial message against
the common image of womens beauty. They communicated on the natural beauty (provided
by Dove products) instead of unreachable and fake beauty that is seen in the majority of
advertisements. This controversial marketing campaign had a huge success in terms of
media coverage but some people talked about the risks taken by Dove in opening a social
debate that they couldnt control and the fact that they might get the image of the
fat people brand which could put them in an uncomfortable marketing position. First of all,
Dove made this range of ads to discuss about the common image of beauty in our society.
They were taking position as they present themselves as the leader of a battle against non-
natural and unreachable beauty. It is a good way to build the image of a brand that has a point
of view and cares about womens problems beyond the need of the product itself (lack of
self-esteem, etc.). They made some TV ads to launch the buzz which worked better than
expected as the media started to talk about a new social debate and some TV shows mention
it as cultural phenomenon. The Evolution video of Dove was a blockbuster and won several
awards in the advertising industry. After a quick and large spread on the web, the message
took another dimension as bloggers and forums users start to talk about it. Thats where the
risks begins. Some comments were positive while many others were negative which imposed
doubt in the customers mind. Meenakshi Durham, professor at the university of Iowa school
of Journalism and mass communication, author of the book The Lolita effect commented in
favor of the campaign given that we live in a consumer society Id rather buy products from
a company thats at least trying to find a more ethical way to reach customers, rather than
one thats still completely entrenched in gender stereotypes. Contrastingly Jennifer Pozner,
executive director of Women In Media & News and author of Reality Bites Back: The Troubling
Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV, believes that Dove's message is at odds with its products,
and that the company is capitalizing on women's poor body images. As Doves message was
diffused widely, it was getting harder and harder to control the content of it and the image it
wanted to promote. Every controversial message is dangerous if you can no longer control it.
Some voices started to see Dove as the brand for fat people and saw the no-aspiration aspect
in Doves advertising. There were a lot of parodies done on the ads and some of them were
very critical about Unilever hypocrisy and real motives. Though Unilever was very careful
about public relations, there was a risk with this campaign of losing the power of delivering a
clear image and message. To conclude, I think that if we can find some risks in a strategy,
the benefits of it are far more numerous. It can touch more people in a very short time and
the statistics have already proved it in case of Dove. TV shows and debate, as well as internet
diffusion were doing the work for it. After all Doves sales and financial results are eloquent,
that why we think their strategy is not a big problem for the brands image. Sticking to the
case timeline (2008), the campaign is still blooming which indicates that it can be stretched a
bit into the future.