To Conclude

Dove began as the trustworthy household bar of soap and has experienced tremendous success after undergoing a complete and daring repositioning with the launch of their "campaign for real beauty"; their campaign created invaluable media attention as the controversial adverts caught the attention of the masses. Unilever faced controversy surrounding Greenpeace and their use of palm oil, however Unilever quickly responded to these accusations, faced up to the facts and took immediate action. 

Despite some scrutiny towards the paradoxical approach to Dove and Axe both brands are successful. Axe is known for having more sex appeal, a strong identity, open minded and with strong leadership (Lovemarks test). 
Contrariwise, Dove's main associations are high self-esteem, purity, honesty, sincerity, freshness; all women are beautiful in their own way. Dove has strong brand equity, high values, is recognized as reliable, secure, and comfortable. (Lovemarks test).
To increase these associations, Dove uses a lot of images and pictures which represents “girls next door”, and also emotions through their testimonies. 
Axe's main associations are young, cool, fun, masculine, sexual confidence. Axe promises to its consumers that the brand will make them smell good, feel good and look good to seduce women. 
 It would be a great opportunity for Dove to create brand extensions addressed to men like shaving gel for example. 

Today both Dove and Axe are well known brands that one can buy in more than 50 countries. Each of the brands has its own loyal consumers, because each of the brands has its own spirit, idea and goal. Since each of the brands has its own strong stories and vision, each brand is a market leader in its target consumers' market. 
However, while Dove helps women as well as in the reality (The Dove Self-Esteem Project) as in the advertisement. Axe has a more digital influence. So, one can conclude, that Dove cares about its consumers a lot, contributing to some real life actions and bring to life more, than just a nice shower gel or soap.

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Axe and Dove Lovemark comparison

Following our previous studies, we noticed that Unilever success to make relevant soap and deodorant that are supposed to be boring product. 

 

We interviewed 30 persons, between 20 and 50 and more years old, 20 women and 10 men. As respondents are few, these results have to be taken in a global view.

First of all, 100% of our respondents known Dove and Axe brand. Moreover, 53% of respondents have ever bought Axe products (whose 50% are men), and 87% ever bought Dove products (whose 73% are women). There is already a gender tendency for each brand.

 

Then, Dove has sex appeal for 43% of the respondents, whereas 87% of them think that Axe is a sexy brand. Axe is sexier than Dove, which is correlated to its image of being sexy, being confidant, to attract women, especially sexy women.

We use the Lovemark test on respondents to test their relation with the brands.

Concerning the Respect of the brands, respondents think the brand Dove performs a little bit more than Axe brand (respectively 6/10 vs 5/10). Moreover, respondents’ trust in Dove is higher than Axe (respectively 6/10 vs 4/10). Finally, respondents’ reputation has low score for both Dove and Axe (respectively 4/10 vs 3/10).

Dove seems to be a brand with a strong identity and high values (Performance score). The higher scored in Trust refers to “Reliability”, “Security” and “Ease”. However concerning Reputation, for the respondents Dove has no leadership.

Whereas for Axe brand, respondents’ opinion is different: Axe has a strong identity and innovate a lot. This brand’s trust higher scored refers to “Ease” and “Openness”. And finally, Axe as a very strong leadership.

 

Only two men love the brand: scored more than 25 points for Respect category and more than 41 points for Love category.

Concerning Dove, this man scored higher Sensuality in the Love category (8/10). Concerning Axe, another man scored fully Mystery (10/10) and intimacy (6/6).

Concerning the other, even if they do not scored 25 to Respect, they think that Dove has great stories, is a brand with a past, a present and a future and gives inspiration. In comparison with Axe, which has a higher score in this category except for “Past, Present, Future” point. Axe makes people dreams, with myths and gives inspiration to customers.

Smell and Touch correspond to Dove whereas Smell and Sight correspond to Axe. Axe focus on what you are going to look after using Axe, whereas Dove focus on, accept yourself.

Finally, respondents associated Dove at Empathy and Axe at Passion, in the Intimacy category.

Thanks to this test, respondents answers are in correlation with the message and consumers’ target decided by Unilever: Dove concerns more women than men, is a serious brand, who take care about your skin, your body, yourself, about women’s opinion on their body and their shape and has compassion. Contrary to Axe, focusing on young boy, fun and cool brand image, which permits them to make them dream about their future, how they are going to be physically and mentally being adult. Axe assists them to built their identity, especially in their attitude in front of sexy women.

                                                                     Source: Picture taken from the SBM lecture

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Controversy with Greenpeace

Unilever has also been scrutinized for their contribution to major environmental issues. Greenpeace launched a campaign in 2008, demanding Unilever to take responsibility for the destruction of the Indonesian rainforests; caused by the use of palm oil in their products—targeting Dove in particular.

Although palm oil is found in a majority of skin care products from Unilever and other companies, according to Greenpeace (2008), Unilever is one of the biggest buyers of palm oil.

It appears that Greenpeace targeted Dove because of their strong positioning as being a “wholesome” brand, standing up for women’s causes. This made them an easy target, to expose the fact that this “conscientious” product is actually a major contributor of deforestation. Greenpeace used a satirical approach to their campaign by using Dove’s campaign for real beauty to bring awareness to the deforestation in Indonesia.

Greenpeace’s clever campaign proved to be very successful, because in just two weeks time enough public pressure built-up and Unilever responded (Greenpeace 2008).  Unilever decided to take action by supporting Greenpeace in the fight against deforestation. Unilever agreed to an immediate suspension on deforestation for palm oil in South East Asia (Greenpeace 2008). Unilever will utilize their influence in the industry to assertively build a coalition of companies to support the moratorium, as well as putting pressure on their suppliers (Greenpeace 2008). Additionally, they agreed to lobby the Indonesian government in order to gain more support towards the immediate suspension of deforestation (Greenpeace 2008).

While Unilever is guilty of being a major contributor to the deforestation in Indonesia, due to the purchasing of large quantities of palm oil, they are certainly not the only company. Palm oil is found in a multitude of skin care products and many companies are guilty of contributing to the deforestation. However, Dove was targeted for Greenpeace’s campaign to bring awareness to this environmental issue. Although this created negative media for Dove, Unilever was very reactive in responding to Greenpeace. This demonstrated their willingness to cooperate and take initiative in supporting this cause, which in turn generated a more positive brand image. Within two weeks of the initial launch of the campaign against Dove, Unilever had agreed to take proactive measures to fight for the cause. This creates positive attention for Unilever, because now they are featured on the Greenpeace website as being proactive in the cause. 

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References:

Greenpeace International. (2009) Public pressure for Indonesia's forests works, Ask Unilever. Retrieved November 12, 2013 from http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/forests/asia-pacific/dove-palmoil-action/

Pictures:

Tracy. (2008)Greenpeace International. Unilever takes the lead to stop deforestation in Indonesia. Retrieved November 12, 2013 from http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/unilever-takes-the-lead-to-stop-deforestation-in-indonesia-20080515

Hill, E. (2008). Greenpeace International. Stop Dove destroying forests for palm oil.

Retrieved November 12, 2013 from http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/multimedia/photos/stop-dove-destroying-forests-f/

The Archetypes of AXE and Dove

One tool in Marketing today, is the use of Archetypes in order to find the right personality for a brand. Archetypes are mythic characters that are found within the collective unconscious of people all over the world and are therefore understood universally. Archetypes are used in myths and stories in different cultures and tap into human aspirations and emotions. There are 12 different archetypes and each one has its own significance based on values and character traits: The Innocent, The Everyman, The Explorer, The Sage, The Hero, The Outlaw, The Magician, The Jester, The Caregiver, The Creator, The Ruler, and The Lover.

In the case of AXE, one can clearly recognize ’The Magician’ aka the visionary or healer at the core of the brand. It is characterized by the desire to understand the fundamental laws of the universe and the goal to make dreams come true by developping a vision and following it (strategy). To be classified as a ’Magician’, a brand needs to live by the motto ’I make things happen’, have the unconditional promise to transform its customers, offer a new and contemporary product that is transformative, be consciousness expanding and be associated with spirituality. AXE exemplifies some of these characteristics, first of all the unconditional promise to transform its customers. In its communication strategy, AXE promises the ’average guy’ to get the girls by using the product. Recognizing this, one can say that AXE’s vision is to help guys achieve a supernatural experience by promoting faith and establishing confidence in the consumers mind . The weakness of ’The Magician’ is the danger of becoming manipulative. This also applies to AXE.

In the case of Dove, the campaign for Real Beauty is a very successful brand story with a strong message of transformative thinking which challenges the ideal of beauty and breaks with the rules of the beauty industry. This corresponds to the characteristics of ’The Outlaw’ that disrupts and overturns what isn’t working. However, the desire of this archetype, to revenge and revolt contradict the core value of Dove and therefore, this archetype does not apply to Dove. However, Dove seems to exemplify ’The Innocent’, with the goal of achieving a pure life by doing the right thing. In other words, to be happy. ’Free to be yourself’ could be the motto of this archetype and fits Dove’s mission perfectly. In addition, ’The Innocent’ seeks to provide an identity for brands with clear values that want to be differentiated from brands with bad reputation and offer an easy solution to a well-known problem and are associated with goodness,simplicity and morality. All of these personality traits of ’The Innocent’ seem to be a perfect match to Dove, a brand that has recognized that the image of beauty, as promoted by the beauty industry, was not coherent with reality and has offered a simple solution to women around the world: to accept and love themselves!

- Anke S.

Sources:

http://aestheticcrit.com/brand-design-and-its-archetypes.html

http://joannapenabickley.typepad.com/on/2007/06/on_the_12_arche.html

http://berroa.weebly.com/hbr-dove-real-beauty-campaign.html
http://forty.co/resources/brand-archetypes

Dove Brand Equity & Brand Image

In order to know and understand its consumers Dove conducted a study in 2004, interviewed women all over the world: “THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT BEAUTY: A GLOBAL REPORT”.  Thus, Dove decided to launch the Campaign for real beauty by observing that only 2% of women considered themselves as beautiful person.

Dove would like to give an answer to customers’ emotions and feelings about their beauty point of view. This campaign is not to promote Dove’s products; this is an engage video to show the truth about their beauty, their perception is completely messed up by advertising on television and magazines.

Dove’s target is real men and women, meaning with a natural beauty, with the real beauty. Dove wants to change the way people are looking at their beauty and want to increase their self-esteem: “You’re more beautiful than you think”.

Dove uses a lot of media to promote its campaigns: viral video on its Youtube channel, on its Facebook page, and forums. These platforms are used by most of the population and easy to use. Thanks to these viral videos, million people all over the world had watched Dove. By digital promotion and beauty campaign, Dove creates a community. Moreover, consumers are youth and middle age people, thus Dove uses less adverts on television.

                             

  

Source : http://www.youtube.com/user/doveunitedstates/featured

Source : https://www.facebook.com/DoveFR

Moreover, people emotions are associated with colours. Dove products are blue and white, perceived as clean, pure, fresh, natural and youthful. It also perceived on Dove’s website: “participants identified concepts like satisfaction, contentment, natural beauty, freshness, youth, simplicity, and self-esteem” (Case study: The Emotional Pull of Beauty Brands, 2012).

                           

 

Source: http://blog.usabilla.com/case-study-the-emotional-pull-of-beauty-brands/

 Source : Dove’s Facebook page http://contently.com/strategist/2013/04/25/how-doves-real-beauty-video-touched-a-nerve-and-went-viral-video/

In this case study, 100 women had been interviewed. Thanks to their campaign, Dove makes women seeing themselves as women in the adverts, concerning their physic, their confident, their power and their beauty.

Moreover, respondents considered Dove as “honest, sincere and real”, “a young brand with energy, freshness, and high spirit”, but mostly focusing on women, even if the brand offers males’ products.

Consumers also consider some other characteristics as contemporary, enduring, modern, dynamic, secure and unique brand, especially from the young consumers.

Dove is associated with high self-esteem, purity and all women are beautiful on their own way. To increase these associations, Dove uses a lot of images and pictures which represents “girls next door”, and also emotions through their testimonies.

                                  

Source: Dove’s Twitter page http://contently.com/strategist/2013/04/25/how-doves-real-beauty-video-touched-a-nerve-and-went-viral-video/

Source: Dove Youtube channel, discussion http://www.youtube.com/user/doveunitedstates/discussion

Even if Dove gives a good impression on consumers’ minds, some of them are reluctant concerning some aspects.

Referring to the survey, late middle age respondents do not feel include in Dove’s community. Dove should integrate this age group of 45-55 years old to cover a larger community of consumers.

Moreover, Dove is appreciated by the fact that no products appears in their adverts, but may Dove should create more adverts on television to press on their products benefits and specifies.

Another aspect would be that Dove sell male product, but never address to this target. Thus, for most of men, Dove is a feminine product. It would be a great opportunity for Dove to create brand extensions addressed to men like shaving gel for example.

Finally, here is below an abstract from the article Why Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” Video Makes Me Uncomfortable… and Kind of Makes Me Angry. In this blog, a young girl, Jazzylittle Drop, described the video “Dove Real Beauty Sketches” by criticising the Dove point of view on what is beautiful or not. There is a controversy on Dove message and the way it is delivered.

Source:

http://jazzylittledrops.tumblr.com/post/48118645174/why-doves-real-beauty-sketches-video-makes-me

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SOURCES :

Dove. The Dove® Campaign for Real Beauty, 2012. http://www.dove.us/social-mission/campaign-for-real-beauty.aspx

Arleen/Susan, Dove Real Beauty Sketches Connecting with Customer Emotions, http://www.garrettspecialties.com/blog/promotional-products/dove-real-beauty-sketches-connecting-with-customer-emotions/

Dawn Papandrea, April 2013, How Dove’s Real Beauty Video Touched a Nerve and Went Viral, http://contently.com/strategist/2013/04/25/how-doves-real-beauty-video-touched-a-nerve-and-went-viral-video/

Jazzylittle drops, Why Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” Video Makes Me Uncomfortable… and Kind of Makes Me Angry, http://jazzylittledrops.tumblr.com/post/48118645174/why-doves-real-beauty-sketches-video-makes-me

Sabina Idler, March 2012, Case Study: The Emotional Pull of Beauty Brands, http://blog.usabilla.com/case-study-the-emotional-pull-of-beauty-brands/
Anuja Pandey, July 2009, Understanding Consumer Perception of Brand Personality, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1441824
Dr. Nancy Etcoff, Dr. Susie Orbach, Dr. Jennifer Scott, Heidi D’Agostino, September 2004, “THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT BEAUTY: A GLOBAL REPORT”, Findings of the Global Study on Women, Beauty and Well-Being, Commissioned by Dove, a Unilever Beauty Brand, http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentarticles/52%20Beauty/dove_white_paper_final.pdf