Evolution of a brand

UNILEVER

Formed in 1930

Anglo-Dutch merger between Lever Brothers and Margarine Unie

Headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands and London, United Kingdom

3rd largest Consumer products company in the world after P&G and Nestle

Unilever operated in every continent and had particular strengths in India, Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia

By 1980: Reduced Palm Oil Dependence Globalized marketLater: Global Decentralization brand portfolio grew in laissez-faire manner

By 2000: More than 1600 brands• Problem of control • No unified global identity

February 2000:5 year strategic plan• “Path to Growth”

1600 brands

400 brands

Some of them “Masterbrands”

Own Global Brand Unit

Evolution of Brand “Dove”

1957: Launched in market

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.”

1970’s: Popularity increased as milder soap

The term “cleansing cream” was replaced by “moisturizing cream” – but Dove stayed with the claim not to dry skin, and the refusal to call itself a soap, for over 40 years.

2000: Pre-Campaign

Silvia Lagnado, global brand director of Dove, led a worldwide investigation into women’s responses to the iconography of the beauty industry to find a new brand definition.

Pre-Campaign Survey

“Young, white, blonde and thin” – unattainable standards for general women

Taunted by ads featuring beauty icons

Pre-Campaign SurveyUnilever survey results of 3000 women in 10 countries

Result: only 2% of respondents worldwide chose to describe themselves as beautiful

2005: New Brand DefinitionMore Women Feeling Beautiful

CAMPAIGN FOR REAL BEAUTY• In September 29, 2004, Dove launched “Campaign for Real Beauty”

• The ad campaign was designed by Ogilvy & Mather

• The PR was handled by Edelman

• Raise Consciousness of the issues surrounding beauties

• Purpose was to challenge the stereotypes set by the beauty industry

• Intended to make more women feel beautiful everyday.

CAMPAIGN FOR REAL BEAUTY• Release Of a Global Academic Research Study That Explores The

Relationship That Women From Around The World Have With Beauty And its Links To Their Happiness And Well-Being

• Advertising That Inspires Women And Society To Think Differently About What Is Defined As Beautiful.

• Fundraising Initiatives (Sponsored by the DOVE SELF-ESTEEM FUND) To Help Young Girls With Low Body-Related Self Esteem.

EVERY WOMEN HAS SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL ABOUT HER

• 68% agree with the fact that unrealistic standards of beauty exist in the media & advertisement world.

• 47% agreed that only attractive women are portrayed in popular cultures.

• Over 85% believed that beauty could be achieved through attitude & spirit.

WHY CFRB??Real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages

• Declining Sales - lost in crowded market

• Increased competition

• Advertising clutter

• Stagnation in one or two categories - In spite of increase in product range

• Need for Brand Positioning - Evolve brand image without losing their existing customer base and driving aggressive growth

Change the idea of beauty

In 4 stages of advertisements

Start of the Campaign

Stage 1: TICK-BOX billboards Campaign

In this campaign, billboards were erected and viewers were asked to phone and vote on whether a woman on the billboard was “outsized” or “outstanding”. A counter on the billboard showed the votes in real time.

Stage 2: Firming Campaign

This campaign featured six “real” women cheerfully posing. The aim was to “change the way society views beauty,” and “provoke discussion and debate about real beauty.” Functional Benefit: Skin firming cream

Stage 3: Executive’s daughters discussing their self esteem challenges

Stage 4: Film – “Evolution”

112-second film, popularized on YouTube. It showed the face of a young woman as cosmetics, hair styling and Photoshop editing transformed it from plainness to billboard glamour.

Consumer Point of View

Real Ads by Real Women Contest, to invite consumers to create their own ads for Dove Cream Oil Body Wash

Media Planning• Bought every billboard in Grand Central Station for CFRB

promotions

• Showcased ‘Hates Her Freckles’ ad in the Superbowl match

• Evolution ad released only on Youtube

• All these media planning activities created a lot of buzz in the market

Public Relation

Unilever established the global Dove Self-Esteem Fund to raise the self esteem of girls and young women

Brand Management• Unilever had organized the work of marketing in a manner

similar to its main competitor, Procter & Gamble, known as the brand management system.

• Within a product category the form often offered multiple brands, each led by a brand manager.

• In effect, each brand operated as a separate business, competing with its siblings as well as the products of other firms.

• Under Path to Growth, Brand Management was split into two groups:

1. Brand Development2. Brand Building

• Dove in top 10 brands in health and business value • Sales of firming lotion in UK rose by 700%• Sales in the US went up by 11.4% • Revenues for 2005 - (39.67 billion & employed 206,000)• Firming Lotion sales 1st six months 2004- 2.3 million bottles• Total Sales for the Dove Brand rose 6% • No. of visitors to website increased by 200% • Grand EFFIE award for advertising effectiveness(M & O)• Silver Anvil Award for PR (Edelman)

SUCCESS

Growth of $1.2 billion

CRITICISM• No strong connection between ads and Dove products

• People may question Dove’s socially responsible image; Is it real?

• Limits their future marketing campaigns

• Focused too much on the cause and not on the product

• Hypocrisy of criticizing beauty industry and selling beauty products

Our perspective• They featured real women in their campaign as models were too perfect for

most women to aspire for. Also they realized images of models and supermodels left the consumers feel bad about their own body image and hurt their self-esteem.

• They broaden the definition of “ beauty” • They use effective ways of campaigning.• The CFRB website had various tools that helped bolster self-esteem of the

young girls.• In all these ways they grabbed the attention of the customers.• The campaign was quite different from the conventional approach in the

beauty industry.• Also free publicity was given• It broke the rule of the advertising business that “ only beautiful models sell”

How Dove Has EvolvedAt the very beginning, Dove focused its advertising on the benefits of their beauty bar—that it is made with ¼ cleansing cream and that it creams while it cleans. The ads are strongly comparative, urging women to try Dove for themselves and compare it to other ordinary soaps to feel the difference. Dove is all about being different (as one of their current taglines is simply, “Dove is Different”).The advertisements from the 1960’s begin to get more feminine and flirty, featuring classically beautiful, made up, and thin models and focus on feeling girly and pampered when using Dove. The 1970’s advertising begins to take a turn toward the anti-aging benefits of using Dove soap, making consumers feel self-conscious about their skin being dry and thus looking aged and wrinkly. Dove is promised as the solution to staying young and beautiful looking. This advertisement goes strongly against what Dove stands for today. The 1980’s and 1990’s focus heavily on comparative advertising, using test strips to show the difference between the moisturizing, gentle qualities of Dove compared to the harsh chemicals in other soap bars. This method of advertising still remains, often with candid footage of real woman reacting in a focus group type of setting.

How Dove Has Evolved Ctd.In 2004, the brand changed completely. The introduction of the Dove

Campaign for Real Beauty defined the brand in a new light, not as a company focused on selling their products but as a movement passionate about activating self esteem, redefining beauty, and challenging stereotypes. From this campaign branched the Dove Movement for Self-Esteem and the Dove Self-Esteem Fund, dedicated to mentoring children and helping them to have confidence and self esteem, and to believe in their own beauty. The focus comes off of selling the products themselves and instead focuses on the message of the campaign behind the brand. In fact, Dove promises that “each time you buy Dove, you help us and our charitable partners provide inspiring self-esteem programming for girls” (Dove.com)

Dove has also conducted studies throughout the years about “women’s relationship with beauty” called The Real Truth About Beauty. These studies reveal startling facts about women and girls and their feelings about themselves and their bodies. Dove actively works to improve these statistics through their campaign efforts. Dove has defined itself as an emotional supporter rather than a brand. Most women are affected by the issues that Dove addresses so they are extremely relatable. Self esteem is a topic often ignored but Dove tackles this issue head-on with strong emotional appeal. This is done without trying to manipulate women into buying their products to achieve an unrealistic beauty ideal. Instead, Dove has evolved to celebrating realness, an entirely original and refreshing brand concept which has been remarkably successful and impactful. Although Dove’s men’s care ads take an entirely different approach, Dove’s advertising targeted at women has been extremely focused on these efforts.