Johnson & Wales University Dove Evolution of a Brand Case Study Discussion How to analyze a case Cover Page Title Full Names of all group members (put in

Johnson & Wales University Dove Evolution of a Brand Case Study Discussion How to analyze a case

Cover Page

Title
Full Names of all group members (put in alpha order)
Course & Section i.e., Mon/Wed.
Date

Situation Analysis “Synopsis” – briefly summarize the case in your own words – No more than 2 pages (worth 10 points)

Environmental Analysis
SWOT Analysis – in bullet format (worth 25 points)

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats

Problem Statement “WHY?” Keep it brief…no more than 20 words.Challenge yourself to be concise but brief. This should be written as a statement not a question. (worth 10 points)

Development of Alternatives – at least 3.Your alternatives are derived from your opportunities outlined in your SWOT. (worth 25 points). Number each alternative and explain.

Evaluation of Alternatives & Recommendations – Evaluate each alternative using the pros and cons of each choice.Use outside sources to back up your hypothesis.Select the best choice based on the company’s strengths and opportunities.(Worth 20 points)

Recommendation:End this section with an overall recommendation/conclusion – no more than 1 paragraph. (worth 10 points)

Other pointers for working on your cases….

All cases are typed, contain a cover sheet, sections are labeled and are double spaced and printed in a 12-point font.Don’t forget bullet points can help the reader (professor) to follow your points.Bullets should be utilized in the SWOT analysis.Do NOT use paragraphs for this section.
Suggested Reading – Read the case at least 3 times.Yes, 3 times.If you only read it once, you will only be able to detect surface problems. For the exclusive use of Y. Zhang, 2020.
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REV: MARCH 25, 2008
JOHN DEIGHTON
Dove: Evolution of a Brand
In 2007, Unilever’s Dove was the world’s number-one “cleansing” brand in the health and beauty
sector, with sales of over $2.5 billion a year in more than 80 countries. It competed in categories that
included cleansing bars, body washes, hand washes, face care, hair care, deodorants, anti-perspirants,
and body lotions. It competed with brands like Procter and Gamble’s Ivory, Kao’s Jergens, and
Beiersdorf’s Nivea.
Dove had recently launched what it termed a Masterbrand campaign under the title of The Dove
Campaign for Real Beauty. For some marketing observers the campaign was an unqualified success,
giving a single identity to the wide range of health and beauty products. But the vivid identity owed
much to the campaign’s use of the unruly, unmapped world of Internet media.1 Were there risks to
putting the “Real Beauty” story out on media like YouTube, where consumers were free to weigh in
with opinion and dissent? On blogs and in newsletters, marketing commentators argued that Dove’s
management was abdicating its responsibility to manage what was said about the brand, and was
putting its multibillion-dollar asset at risk.2
Unilever
A leading global manufacturer of packaged consumer goods, Unilever operated in the food,
home, and personal care sectors of the economy. Eleven of its brands had annual revenues globally
of over $1 billion: Knorr, Surf, Lipton, Omo, Sunsilk, Dove, Blue Band, Lux, Hellmann’s, Becel, and
the Heartbrand logo, a visual identifier on ice cream products. Other brands included Pond’s, Suave,
Vaseline, Axe, Snuggle, Bertolli, Ragu, Ben and Jerry’s, and Slim-Fast. With annual revenues of $50
billion, Unilever compared in size to Nestle ($69 billion), Procter and Gamble ($68 billion), and Kraft
Foods ($34 billion.)
Unilever was formed in 1930 when the U.K.-based Lever Brothers combined with the Dutch
Margarine Unie, a logical merger given that both companies depended on palm oil, one for soaps and
the other for edible oil products. By the 1980s Unilever’s palm oil dependence had shrunk, but its
British colonial and Dutch trading heritage continued to shape the highly multinational enterprise. It
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.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Professor John Deighton prepared this case. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as
endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Advertising images are copyright Unilever.
Copyright © 2007, 2008 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-5457685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School.
This document is authorized for use only by Yunzi Zhang in MRKT 5500 Summer 2020 taught by Anthony Fruzzetti, Johnson & Wales University from Apr 2020 to Oct 2020.
For the exclusive use of Y. Zhang, 2020.
508-047
Dove: Evolution of a Brand
Global decentralization brought strengths through diversity, but also problems of control. In
particular, the company’s brand portfolio had grown in a relatively laissez-faire manner. In ice
cream, for example, Unilever was the world’s largest producer but lacked a unified global identity. It
produced ice cream under the Wall’s brand in the U.K. and most parts of Asia, the Algida brand in
Italy, Langnese in Germany, Kibon in Brazil, Ola in the Netherlands, and Ben & Jerry’s and Breyers in
the United States. Other product categories had similarly 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 1,600 brands down to 400. Among the surviving
brands, a small number would be selected as “Masterbrands,” and mandated to serve as umbrella
identities over a range of product forms. Previously Unilever had managed brands in a relatively
decentralized fashion, allowing direction to be set by brand managers in each of the geographic
regions in which the brand was marketed. Now, for the first time, there would be a global brand unit
for each Masterbrand, entrusted with responsibility for creating its global vision and charged with
inspiring cooperation from all geographic markets.
Dove: The Functional Benefits Era
Dove was a brand with its origins in the U.S. in the post-World War II era. The first Dove
product, called a beauty bar, was launched in 1957 with the claim that it would not dry out your skin
the way soap did, because it was not technically soap at all. Its formula came from military research
conducted to find a non-irritating skin cleaner for use on burns and wounds, and it contained high
levels of natural skin moisturizers. Dermatological studies found it milder than soap-based bars.
The 1957 launch advertising campaign for Dove was created by the Ogilvy and Mather
advertising agency. The message was, “Dove soap doesn’t dry your skin because it’s one-quarter
cleansing cream,” and the claim was illustrated with photographs that showed cream being poured
into a tablet. This simple proposition was expressed in television, print, and billboards; soon, Dove
became one of America’s most recognizable brand icons.
Exhibits 1, 2, and 3 show early and later examples of Dove advertising. In time there were minor
changes in slogan—for example, the term “cleansing cream” was replaced with “moisturizing
cream”—but Dove stayed with the claim not to dry skin, and the refusal to call itself a soap, for over
40 years. The advertising aspired to project honesty and authenticity, preferring to have naturallooking women testifying to Dove’s benefits rather than stylized fashion models. In the 1980s, the
Dove beauty bar was widely endorsed by physicians and dermatologists to treat dry skin. Until 2000,
the brand depended on claims of functional superiority backed by the product’s moisturizing benefit.
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 of functional benefits, communication to build the
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. No longer could Dove communicate mere
functional superiority, because functionality meant different things in different categories. Unilever
decided, instead, that Dove should stand for a point of view. A search for that point of view began
right away. A process of exploratory market research, consultation with experts, conversations with
women, and message testing led to “The Campaign for Real Beauty.”
2
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For the exclusive use of Y. Zhang, 2020.
Dove: Evolution of a Brand
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A Brand With a Point of View
The origins of the idea began in 2002. Silvia Lagnado, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based global
brand director for Dove, led a worldwide investigation into women’s responses to the iconography of
the beauty industry, and unearthed deep discontent. “Young, white, blonde and thin” were the
almost universal characteristics of women portrayed in advertising and packaging, but for many
women these were unattainable standards,
and far from feeling inspired they felt
taunted. In the search for an alternative
view of the goal of personal care, Unilever
tapped two experts. Nancy Etcoff was a
Harvard University psychiatrist working at
the Massachusetts General Hospital, author
of the book, Survival of the Prettiest. Suzy
Orbach was a London-based psychotherapist best known for having treated
Lady Diana Spencer and was the author of
the book, Fat is a Feminist Issue. Philippe
Harousseau, vice president for brand
development at Dove, explained, “Working
with psychologists was a real plus and the
payoffs were enormous. By comparison,
focus groups would have just scratched the
surface.”
Unilever made some use of
surveys. It went to 3,000 women in 10
countries and explored some of the
Source: Unilever.
hypotheses generated by the psychologists.
Among the findings was the fact that only 2% of respondents worldwide chose to describe
themselves as beautiful (Exhibit 4).
Informed by the research, Lagnado initiated the first exploratory advertising executions. She
hired British photographer John Rankin Waddell, an avant guarde fashion photographer well-known
for using ordinary people in
supermodel contexts and for
books of nudes featuring plainlooking models. The result was
the so-called Tick-Box campaign.
In this campaign, billboards
were erected and viewers were
asked to phone 1-888-342-DOVE
to vote on whether a woman on
the billboard was “outsized” or
“outstanding.” A counter on the
billboard showed the votes in
real time.
The campaign
attracted keen public interest, as
“outsized” first raced ahead and
then fell back.
Source: Unilever.
in
The next series of Dove ads,
June 2005, were known
3
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For the exclusive use of Y. Zhang, 2020.
508-047
Dove: Evolution of a Brand
internally as the Firming campaign because they promoted a cream that firmed the skin. They
featured six “real” women cheerfully posing in plain white underwear. Dove marketing director for
the U.S., Kathy O’Brien, told the press that the company wanted the ads to “change the way society
views beauty,” and “provoke discussion and debate about real beauty.” Todd Tillemans, the general
manager for Unilever’s North American Skin Business, commented, “This ad, in retrospect, was an
easy transition away from functionality. We were selling a skin-firming cream, and here we were
delivering a functional benefit.”
But as the campaign developed, concerns within the brand team began to grow. The argument
that Tillemans heard was that work under the ‘Campaign for Real Beauty” banner risked moving the
brand to a positioning that was at odds with its heritage. “When you talk of real beauty, do you lose
the aspirational element? Are consumers going to be inspired to buy a brand that doesn’t promise to
take you to a new level of attractiveness? Debunking the beauty myth brings with it the danger that
you are debunking the whole reason to spend a little more money for the product. You’re setting
yourself up to be an ordinary brand.”
The next step in the campaign was particularly controversial. At a Dove leadership team offsite
meeting, an effort was made to engage executives in the idea behind The “Campaign for Real
Beauty” by filming their own daughters discussing their self-esteem challenges. The impact was
enormous, and the Ogilvy and Mather advertising agency
quickly turned the idea behind the film into an ad. At one point,
the ad focused on a young girl with freckles with the caption,
“Hates her freckles.” At another, a shot of an Asian pre-teen was
superimposed by the caption, “Wishes she were blonde.” The ad
itself was widely admired, but controversy erupted over the fact
that it mentioned no product. How would it earn a return on the
investment in media? Tillemans commented, “Here was a brand
in the health-and-beauty category, blatantly out to debunk the
dream that supermodel beauty was within your grasp. We were
saying that the beauty industry was portraying an unattainable Source: Unilever.
and stereotypical image of beauty, and yet there we were in the beauty industry.” Nevertheless,
supporters of the ad prevailed and it ran in the 2006 broadcast of the Superbowl football game
between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks.
Stage four of the Real Beauty campaign involved not an advertisement, but a film. In Canada, the
Dove regional brand-building team was running self-esteem workshops for women, and the Toronto
office of advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather developed a
112-second film to drive traffic to the workshops. The North
American brand-building team saw the film and decided it
deserved a wider audience. The resulting digital film was
known as “Evolution.” It showed the face of a young woman as
cosmetics, hair styling, and Photoshop editing transformed it
from plainness to billboard glamour. Given its unusual length,
television was not an option, and in October 2006 the film was
posted to YouTube, a popular video-sharing website. Within
three months, it had been viewed three million times.
Source: Unilever.
Unilever crafted a mission statement to serve as an anchor to the variety of creative initiatives that
unified “The Campaign for Real Beauty.” The statement read:
Dove’s mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by broadening the narrow
definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves.
4
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Dove: Evolution of a Brand
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The mission statement’s purpose was summed up by Harousseau:
If you are not crystal clear what the brand’s mission is, you cannot control what happens
when people amplify it. Everyone working on Dove knows these words by heart. They know
that the mission statement does not say Dove is about women feeling more beautiful, but . . .
about more women feeling beautiful. Our notion of beauty is not elitist. It is celebratory,
inclusive, and democratic.
From the Brand’s to the Consumer’s Point of View
In late 2006 the Dove brand builders in North America announced a contest, titled Real Ads by
Real Women, to invite consumers to create their own ads for Dove Cream Oil Body Wash, a new
product scheduled to be launched in early 2007. Winning commercials would air during a
commercial break on the 79th annual Academy Awards broadcast on network television on
February 25, 2007. The rules included a list of “thought-starters” for those thinking of entering the
competition:
•
Try the product. When you’re using Dove Cream Oil Body Wash in the shower, take note of
what you feel, smell, see and hear. Are you reminded of any pleasant experiences or
interesting places?
•
Look up “luxury” in the dictionary. What does it mean? What could it mean?
•
Explore the world around you. What luxuries do you find in your world? Frozen yogurt after
a hard workout, a moment of quiet after a long, hectic day, the sight of a brightly colored bird
outside your window.
The contest website was hosted by AOL, and the ads of finalists for the top prize were posted to
http://dovecreamoil.com/.
Media Planning
Harousseau described Unilever’s media plan for “The Campaign for Real Beauty” as breaking
every rule in the company. “We learned as we went forward,” he said. The Firming campaign used
a blitz of paid media. “We bought every billboard in Grand Central Station. We were out to build a
buzz. We knew we had succeeded when on July 14, 2005, Katie Couric spent 16 minutes on the Today
Show with our firming girls. You just can’t buy that kind of exposure. You can’t buy pop culture.”
Yet he was shocked when his team proposed a Superbowl media buy for the “Hates her freckles”
ad. “Over my dead body,” he said. “The Superbowl’s where you sell beer. Do you want to show our
message there? They came back at me: If you want to tell America that women suffer from low selfesteem, what better place to tell 90 million of them than the Superbowl?” The impact was
extraordinary. News programs echoed the message of the ad, and Oprah Winfrey devoted a full
show to self-esteem, with the advertisement as a centerpiece. Jay Leno ran a parody of the ad on his
late-night talk show and Wal-Mart developed a version of the ad featuring its employees.
When the advertising agency brought the Evolution advertisement idea to Unilever, it was
prepared to go forward without paid media at all. The ad was released to YouTube, and never ran
on television except in the context of news and commentary programs such as Good Morning America.
However it was among the most downloaded commercials ever to appear on YouTube, and its
5
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For the exclusive use of Y. Zhang, 2020.
508-047
Dove: Evolution of a Brand
popularity was the subject of considerable newspaper, radio and television coverage. It generated
volumes of discussion on chat rooms, with contributions on topics like anorexia and heartfelt
interchanges between fathers and daughters.
Public Relations
Unilever’s public relations strategy was an element, together with advertising, media planning,
consumer promotions, and customer marketing, in an integrated approach to marketing planning.
A public relations channel strategy was crafted by Stacie Bright, Unilever Senior Communications
Marketing Manager, and Edelman, the Dove brand’s public relations agency, in several countries
including the U.S., to generate broad awareness for “The Campaign for Real Beauty” and establish an
emotional connection with women. Embedded in a set of aggressive media relations benchmarks
was an overarching goal: to spark a dialogue and debate about beauty that would ultimately
penetrate popular culture. “The world of communications has changed dramatically since the first
Dove marketing campaign in 1957,” commented Bright. “The media landscape is increasingly
fragmented and people are no longer passively consuming media. We had a great opportunity to
build a framework to spark a debate and to meet the challenges we knew we’d meet when we tried to
share control of the message with the media and the public.”
The plan was grounded in research. The global survey (Exhibit 4) was the underpinning for all
external communications. It lent scientific credibility to the team’s hypothesis that the definition of
beauty had become limiting and unattainable.
The plan needed to account for media dissent. Some media outlets took issue with the brand’s
“real women are beautiful” premise. For example, a Chicago Sun Times editorialist, Richard Roeper,
wrote: “Chunky women in their underwear have surrounded my house. . . . I find these ads a little
unsettling. If I want to see plump gals baring too much skin, I’ll go to Taste of Chicago, OK?”
Unilever and the public relations team had to decide whether to steer clear of this kind of
controversy, or embrace and fuel the debate. They chose to do the latter. In this instance, the team
took steps to ensure that local broadcasters in Chicago and other major markets saw Roeper’s story.
The team continued to build coverage and interest with more than 200 local news programs and
more than 60 national broadcast a…
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