The Unilever brand DOVE has announced that it is pushing its "real beauty" creative idea even further with the use of women with eating disorders talking about the problems that they face. Is this a good move?
DOVE made an important step, in my view, in the world of marketing when they adopted for the brand a "brand belief". I believe that having a "brand belief" at the core of your brand is essential if brand owners want to ensure that they succeed in differentiating themselves and innovating in a way that is unique, different and superior to their competitive brands.
This is the issue I will be discussing in a talk that I am going to be giving on the Richmond Event's "Marketing Forum 2007" on-board the P&O ship Aurora in September. I will also post an article to download after that talk.
To remind you, Dove are acting counter to the long held belief in the beauty world that consumers want to see aspirational talent in beauty advertising. Dove is arguing that for too long the media has portrayed a distorted view of beauty, and Dove wants to celebrate that beauty comes in all sizes and shapes. The creative idea and approach being "real women" with the use of real (or real looking) women with curves and flaws.
Examples of what they do include range from the almost public service style campaigns (like the Cannes Award winning "Evolution" viral campaign showing a normal woman being transformed with make up and digital imagery into a stunning model, the "Young Girls" belief, "Mothers and Daughters" talk to your daughters workshops) through to product commercials like "Dove Pro-Age" and "Dove Body Lotion".
The results for Dove have generally been very strong. In the UK alone, for example, Euromonitor shows the brand growing on average for the last 5 years by almost 18% a year versus about 4% for the market.
A key reason has been that having a brand belief generates a response from consumers as it connects with them above and beyond just features and benefits alone. This comes through the more innovative, distinctive and emotive communication you generate by inspiring your brand teams and agencies through having a brand belief at your core. It is much easier to be innovative and creative around a belief than it is around another X% change in performance of some feature of your product. In another posting I spoke about how all the response will not be positive but how it will engage and seems, in this case, to lead to sales.
However, there is an fine balance to play with a brand belief.
As a mass market product, which Dove is as it operates as a mainstream mid-proceed toiletries, skin and hair care brand in grocery stores, you need to ensure that your belief has broad appeal and resonates to the widest possible audience. So while the overall belief that beauty comes in all sizes and shapes should be celebrated is something that will talk to, and resonate, with almost everyone and be relevant, the more the brand starts to move into uncomfortable and more psychological and illness related elements the more marginal and risky this becomes.
It starts to make the belief, and the idea, feel more about problems than celebration, it takes on a darker and probably less mainstream and less relevant role. Dove sells products to try and correct flaws at the end of the day, or to make the most of them. The last few years has seen it celebrating beauty in all it's sizes. By putting more real problems versus probably more "vanity" issues as central to their belief they start to get into more dangerous territory.
A bottle of Dove in your bathroom may say problem versus celebration, say something darker versus lighter.
The pop star Mika has a single out called "Big Girl you are Beautiful". It is up-beat, celebratory as is the video. I think Dove should ensure they stay in this kind of territory to keep their brand belief relevant to the category and ground they operate in.
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