Dove’s Marketing Strategy, 5 Keys to its Success
It’s not easy to standout in the beauty and skincare industry. What’s hot today isn’t always what’s hot tomorrow especially in a sector that is often dictated by the latest TikTok trends. But the Dove brand, which is 66 years old, has stood the test of time. It is one of the most popular brands with Gen Z consumers.
How has Dove been able to stay relevant in an industry with a discerning set of consumers? When it comes to its reason for being, Dove likes to colour outside of the lines to connect more deeply with consumers. It is also not afraid to take risks to champion new causes and Dove also has an unwavering level of consistency that means when you see Dove you know what the brand stands for. If you are curious about these and other elements of Dove’s marketing strategy then consider these five keys to its success.
1. Redefining what it means to be a skincare and beauty brand. Many brands have a narrow definition of who they are and how they should communicate with consumers. But the best brands see themselves as serving a higher purpose. Take Apple and how it is tackling privacy issues or healthcare. When you look at Amazon you can see that it has always seen itself as more than a book seller. That view helped Amazon to move into new categories and to create successful businesses like Amazon Web Services which sit outside of its core retail business.
Over the last few decades Dove has expanded its vision of what a skincare and beauty brand should be. It sees itself as a brand that not only helps you to have better skin but also as a brand that helps consumers have a higher self-esteem. Doesn’t that sound like a stretch? It is a bit of a stretch on face value. When you think about beauty and skincare brands they often market their products as ones that help you to achieve a standard of beauty that isn’t achievable. This is especially the case when brands have heavily edited “after” photos. But by focusing on self-esteem Dove is able to connect with the true underlying consumer need which is how can we feel good about ourselves.
“Dove’s strategy is to drive systemic change, one that changes the beauty industry for the better. We want to create real tangible changes to the beauty industry, making it a positive space for everyone,” said Alessandro Manfredi, Dove’s chief marketing officer. “It’s become Dove’s mission to make a positive experience of beauty universally accessible to every woman.”
2. A focus on diversity and inclusion. Those are buzz words now but two decades ago most brands weren’t focused on diversity and inclusivity in their marketing messages and collateral. This changed with Dove’s Real Beauty campaign in 2004. The campaign featured everyday women instead of models and did not use perfect lighting, professional makeup or retouching. The models in the campaign were also more diverse and inclusive than other marketing campaigns at the time.
Dove’s 2004 Real Beauty campaign
Looking at photo from the Dove Real Beauty campaign above, the women aren’t nearly as diverse as what you would see in a Fenty Beauty or Fenty X Savage campaign today. But remember that was nearly 20 years ago in 2004. Dove is actually credited with creating a shift towards more inclusive marketing that we then saw brands like Aerie adopt. The Dove Real Beauty campaign is one of the most well known and lauded campaigns in marketing history.
3. Taking risks. Take a scroll through Instagram and you will see a plethora of me too brands. The same aesthetic and marketing messages are seen over and over. Why do brands do this? Once something is successful people think if they do the same thing they can achieve success too. The truth is that strategy can and does work. But if you want breakout success you have to do something different. If everything you do is already out there then it’s hard to standout.
But doing something different can come at a cost, it might not work, it could damage your reputation or you could lose a lot of financial resources in the process. But without risk there is no reward. If you want your brand to be talked about like Dove’s then you have to take risks like Dove has. Launching a large marketing campaign 20 years ago about inclusivity would have been a risk at the time because other brands were not doing the same thing.
Dove decided to move in the direction of inclusivity to revive its brand image which was looking tired in the early 2000s. It conducted consumer research and found that only 2% of women interviewed see themselves as beautiful. Dove thought if they could focus on this issue then they could be become relevant again. “What we were beginning to realize is that women have a different view of beauty than what was being portrayed,” said Kathy O’Brien former vice president of skin and marketing services for Unilever (which owns Dove), and O’Brien was also involved in the conception of the Real Beauty campaign. “We thought that we have a responsibility to do something about that.”
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4. Giving back. In 2006 Dove launched the Dove Self Esteem project which provides young people with resources including articles, videos and workshops on self-esteem, bullying and body positivity. The project has had a global impact, reaching more than 70 million young people and by 2030 it is estimated it will reach 250 million young people.
Dove is the largest provider of self esteem education in the world. “We are all bombarded with beauty and appearance ideals from a young age – in the media, from our peers and from our parents telling us we need to look a certain way,” says Stacie June Shelton, Dove’s global head of education and advocacy, Dove Self Esteem-Project. “Our Dove Self-Esteem Project tools are incredibly transformational, arming young people with protective skills to confidently stand up to these pressures. But we can’t reach them alone. We’d urge anyone with children in their life to share these proven resources, and help more young people feel more confident in their own skin.”
When you think of a beauty or skincare brand you don’t think of self-esteem courses, after all the very existence of these brands brings attention to our perceived flaws. But Dove’s focus on educating young people on self esteem is also a very powerful marketing tactic. Instead of only having marketing images and messages online millions and millions of young people are introduced to the Dove’s brand at an early age through the Dove Self Esteem Project.
By offering free courses that make consumers feel better about themselves Dove is essentially establishing trust with its target market. After taking a workshop offered by Dove on how to improve self-esteem, if a young consumer is out shopping with her mom and needs to pick up some body wash Dove will already be in her mind along with a positive impression. Sometimes the best way to sell something is to not to sell at all.
5. Consistency. Some brands dabble in diversity, inclusion and body positivity and others make a commitment. Dove has played in this space for a very long time as you can see with just a sampling of Dove’s initiatives in this area.
Real Beauty Sketches (2013). In this campaign Dove created a short video where a sketch artist made portraits of women first using words they use to describe themselves then using words used by others. The outcome was that when the women described themselves their pictures were less attractive than the portraits produced based on the comments from others. The Real Beauty Sketches video has garnered over 4.6 billion media impressions and over 160 million views. At the time the Real Beauty Sketches ad was launched it was the most viewed online video ad ever. “We knew that we had something magical with Dove Real Beauty Sketches,” said Fernando Machado former global VP of Dove Skin.
#Nodigitaldistortion (2018). As part of Dove’s No Digital Distortion campaign Dove introduced a symbol on its adverts that confirms the image has not been digitally retouched. “Viewing unrealistic and unachievable beauty images creates an unattainable goal which leads to feelings of failure,” said Jess Wiener, cultural expert for the Dove Self Esteem Project. “This is especially true of young girls who have grown up in a world of filters and airbrushing.”
Courage is Beautiful (2020): This campaign which was launched at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic shows real and raw pictures of healthcare workers on the frontlines. The campaign generated over two billion impressions and was so successful it won the 2021 Marketing Week Masters Award for Brand Purpose. “There was a feeling we got that courage is beautiful,” said Manfredi. “We thought why not try to show people who were doing this and also ask people to join us to thank these people who are risking their lives? We did it in, I have to say, four or five days. Then we needed to know we have the images that were right for the U.S. and took two more days for the U.S. It was the fastest campaign I ever saw in my entire life.”
Dove’s 2020 Courage is Beautiful campaign
Consistency breads trust. We have all seen those brands that jump on the bandwagon of the latest trend but then only a few months later they seem to have forgotten their new reason for being. Dove has stayed true to focus on diversity, inclusion and helping young people to be the most confident versions of themselves. This in turn has made customers more loyal to its brand.