Case Analysis of “dove: Evolution of a Brand”

Case Analysis of “Dove: Evolution of a Brand”

In 2007, Dove was considered as one of the best “cleansing” brands in health and beauty care owned by Unilever (referred as the firm), which is a leading global manufacturer of packaged consumer goods. After 2007, in order to decrease the risky elements in Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign for the brand, I propose to brand Dove as natural skin care products, which are capable of providing scientifically-supported and clinically-validated skin benefits for their customers.

During the MGT407 course lectures, we have learned an essential concept of The Brand Pyramid (Fig. 1). Dove’s series of campaign activities aimed to elevate Dove brand from the “Awareness” level to “Associations” and “Resonance”. Particularly, Dove was trying to touch the “Imagery” and “Feelings” domains with customers, create the user profile, customer personality, detailed emotional responses and even social concerns. One can reason that the goal for Dove is to generate loyalty within the customer pool, who could initiate a sense of community and make an active engagement.

Although Dove’s ads are controversy, I agree that Dove’s campaigns efforts were successful because they delivered positive social messaging by awakening individual empowerment, and efficiently improving self-esteem. Financially, it computed that the brand had grown by $1.2 billion (data provided in the case, no clearly established foundation on how much was due to “The Campain for Real Beauty”). However, historically there was no secure connection between advertisements and Dove products, and the firm focused too much on the cause and not on the product. Further, this type of “point of view” strategy limits the firm’s future marketing campaigns. For example, people increasingly see the Dove brand associated with the “average” and lose the aspirational element. One of the options for the firm is to return to the Functional Benefits. In the long term, to reduce the risk of being brand for ‘average’, Dove’s opportunities could be relied on targeting customers at a new emotional level, such as “Healthy is Beautiful”, and re-position Dove band back to its distinct functionality.

Currently headquartered in Rotterdam (Netherlands) and London (United Kingdom), Unilever was formed in 1930 when the Lever Brothers combined with the Margarine Unie. This Anglo-Dutch merger was viewed as “logical” since both companies demand palm oil, one particularly important ingredient for soaps and edible oil products. In 1957, The original Dove brand message was “Dove soap does not dry your skin because it is one-quarter cleansing cream”. This advertising strategy projects honesty and authenticity, and Dove could utilize this message again to emphasize Dove products are associated with natural-looking, and more critically, the firm should establish that Dove’s benefits are tied with “healthy skins”. Similarly, in 1980, the Dove bar was widely endorsed by physicians and dermatologists for dry skin treatment. This direction should be considered by Dove again and use scientific and clinical results to endorse Dove products’ skin benefits, connecting its treatment efficacy to skin’s health status/condition, deliver the clear message “Healthy skin is Beautiful skin.”

This proposed option of utilizing functional benefits can undoubtedly educate customers about the benefits of the Dove products, sending a clear message free of controversy. However, this direction might dangerously turn the Dove brand into a commodity and become difficult to differentiate itself among intense competitions. Back then, Unilever was the 3rd largest Consumer products company in the world (annual revenues of $50 billion), after Nestle (annual revenues of $69 billion) and Procter and Gamble (annual revenue of $68 billion). During course lectures, we also learned that consumers today have many options to react to the firm’s attempts to make meaning, create and communicate meanings of their own. Thus, the firm’s marketing strategy must be open, honest, consistent, and authentic. My proposed future branding strategies and brand management shifts can also evidently fit into The Brand Pyramid system (Fig. 1), and interact Dove brand with customers at the “Associations” and “Resonance” levels. Instead of focusing on the “Imagery” and “Feelings” domains, the proposed new branding direction is to target quality, credibility, experiential benefits. These “Associations” can be well-linked with “Functionality’ and “Performance”, gradually evolve Dove brand to the top of the Pyramid: Dove customers care about more than just superficial appearances, indeed have a keen appreciation of their internal health. Thus, Dove customers who are seeking natural-benefits are wise and healthy. In conclusion, these doable measurements can move Dove’s “Confronting” style as a “Promoting” mode, with an emphasis on the “free, wise, natural, healthy, and be yourself” spectrum. I reason this method can be less confrontational, but still deliver a positively impactful message to the public. Further, it can also differentiate Dove from other competitors’ functionality and aspirational factors. Along the same line as discussed above, while returning to the Functional Benefits model, the following additional actions can be executed to reduce potential setbacks: besides maintaining even better standards of quality, Dove can explore its new opportunities to target male customers; and Dove could heavily invest in technological innovation to evolve the products.