Hips feel good- Dove beauty campaign

Hips feel good- Dove beauty campaign

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Problem statement

Dove is one of the brands owned by the Unilever Company. In the year 2003, the company noted that the global sales of the Dove brand had declined at an alarming rate (Wesley, 2007, 123). Despite the brand being considered one of the best producers of mild products, its share in the beauty products market had condensed by a great margin. The company’s vision was to appeal to the psyche of the emotionally influenced buyer and hence increase their total sales volume and maintain a good brand image for the Dove Brand. They also wished to enhance women’s self-esteem around the world by redefining real beauty. They would be achieved by applying situational influence whereby they would hold participative campaign of redefining real beauty and hence arouse interest in the immediate market with the specific target being women.

Situation analysis: goals and objectives

The Dove management rolled out the Dove beauty campaign with three objectives in mind. They wanted to increase to a great extent the Dove’s market share in the beauty products market. This would be achieved by improving and rebuilding the image of the Dove brand. The second objective was to develop an outstanding market strategy which was unique in the market and hence would make the brand to be unique to in the market. Dunleavy said if the other companies copied their strategy they would just be one of them (Wesley, 2007, 5). The third objective of the dove beauty campaign was to maintain the functional strength of the brand. This would be achieved as the campaign was meant to create a lasting emotional touch with the clientele.

Background and forecast

The realization of a decline in sales of the Dove brand resulted in the Brand manager convening a meeting to deliberate on the steps that would be put in place to increase the sales by 80 percent. The company under the stewardship of the Ernest Ditcher Institute took a focused brand analysis of the Dove brand (Wesley, 2007, 345). The company consequently employed a global strategy that was adapted to suit individual cultures and the unique requirements in the market. The marketing team desired to create an emotional touch with the market which would come to the rescue of the declining sales.

S.W.O.T Analysis of the hips feel good – Dove campaign for real beauty

The Dove campaign for real beauty had its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The evaluation of the campaign based on these grounds is essential in order to establish the viability of the program in future.

Strengths

The campaign has a myriad of fortes due to its tactful formulation and implementation. The campaign has been strengthened by its social acceptability. It has been embraced widely as it promotes gain of self-esteem among women and girls. The campaign has also offered free publicity. The plan acknowledges and credits customers knowledge as the rating of beauty is done freely by any member of the society. The program also awakens individual empowerment among women (Wesley, 2007, 5) It also directs women to challenge the status quo by diversifying the description of beauty. The plan has also enabled the females to boost their self-image and esteem as well. The campaign’s uniqueness has also played a great role in its success.

Weaknesses

The campaign has also faced challenges in its implementation. The Doves real beauty pictures could be big phonies. The Unilever Company has been termed as hypocritical for using sexually suggestive ladies in their advertisements which has raised issues of ethics (Jonathan, 2006, 1683). Their advertisements have been termed to be contradictory due to the double thought approach method they have used. For instance, they state that beauty does not lie on the curvy look and in another case they have put it “love your curves as long as they are tight and firm. This has resulted in a conflicting brand image which has hampered the intended effect.

Opportunities

The campaign has a great potential which can be exploited to maximize the benefits accruing to the company. The potential lies in other opportunities for instance embracing a similar method in promoting men’s products in the market. Creation of similar or close strategies to the Dove beauty campaign in marketing other Unilever brands would also be a great opportunity to the company at large.

Threats

Nonetheless, the campaign is faced by a number of threats. One is the possible duplication of their strategy by other firms as their strategy. This will reduce the affectivity of the campaign. Dunleavy said that” if competition copies our strategy we will just become one of them (Wesley, 2007, 2). The path and approach taken by the campaign also brings the risk of narrowing the usage of the Dove brand’s products to only the curvy and plump women. Continued use of the strategy is also bound to bring boredom tothe targeted group hence making it less effective. The Dove onslaught video also raised a variety of parodies.

Segmentation analysis

Market segmentation is a strategy used in marketing whereby the broad target market is dividing into subsets (Barney, 2003, 354). Each subset consists of consumers with similar needs. Thereafter, a suitable marketing strategy and technique is formulated and implemented with the needs of that particular subset in mind. For instance, market segmentation is used to identify the most appropriate media for advertising to a particular target group. Due to the similarity and homogeneity of needs and attitudes in a particular segment, there exists a great likelihood of a similar response to a similar marketing strategy. Small segments that exist in the market are referred to as market niches.

The Dove brand management came to a realization that their business was basically to sell products to their clientele without attempting to create a special touch in the market. Treating all the clientele alike without considering their specific needs was turning to be lethal. The Dove brand manager, Dunleavy, formed a committee to oversee the promotion of this brand. A research that was conducted indicated that consumer’spreferred the Dove products due to their mild nature, theirmoisturizing sensation, their sweet fruity smell and more so the natural ingredients used to make them (Wesley, 2007, 4). However, the image of the brand was not suitable and hence the sales had declined by a great deal.

The Dove brand management under the stewardship of Dunleavy took an initiative to split their products’ market into several segments. One of the portions consisted of lady consumers of the Doves products. The company speculated a great sales potential in the middle class women. They hence designed a tactful strategy to lure more women into using their beauty products to facilitate them achieve real beauty and hence raise their self-image and esteem (Kelvin and Philip, 2005, 456). This was done using a number of advertisements on billboards and over the internet that facilitated the involvement of the general public by giving their opinions on various aspects of beauty.

Market segmentation table for the Dove Brand

Segment 1 2 3

Who young girls Middle class women Old women

What Beauty products with fragrances Beauty soaps Beauty soaps

When Frequent Very frequent Not frequent

Where Retail outlets Retailoutlets and wholesale Retailoutlets

Why To enhance their beauty To improve on their self esteem For laundry and toilet purposes

How Reasonable prices Results are the main thing, prices do not matter Reasonable prices

Size of segment 30% 50% 20%

Competition analysis

The Dove beauty campaign for real beauty was rolled out after a bitter realization of the decline in sales of the brands products. This decline in sales was as a result of the competition yielded by other brands from rival companies for example, the Lux beauty products. This decline was also as a result of the diminishing image of the dove brand. Existence of numerous steady brands in the market had resulted in a decline in the aggregate sales of the dove company.

Financial analysis

The implementation of the Hips feel good- dove beauty campaign required an intensive amount of capital. This was an important undertaking that the Unilever Company was taking to improve the Dove brand image and hence increase sales volumes. This campaign was to involve models, websites and other media to make it a success. For each of the media employed an intensive amount of money was to be used due to the global nature of the campaign. The funds set aside for this campaign were to be split down and disbursed to different world regions depending on the desired intensity and the prospective sales ratio. The company was to use an aggregate of 27 million dollars in Europe only. The total amount spent on the campaign was 45 million US dollars.

Money spent on billboards 10,000,000 $

Money spent on consultation 14,000,000$

Money spent on websites, print media and tele-advertising 16,000,000$

Money spent on other supportive measures 5,000,000 $

Total money spent on the Hips feel good- Dove beauty campaign 45,000,000$

Key success factors and uncertainties

The campaigns key success factor was the uniqueness of the campaign. The campaign was one of its kinds to be used as a marketing strategy. However, the campaign also had an uncertainty of success once implemented. The company also speculated a possible imitation by other firms which would result in dilution of its impact.

Analysis of alternative solutions

Other marketing strategies could have been used in promoting the Dove brand.These strategies however, came second to the Hips feel good- Dove campaign for real beauty.

First alternative

The first option would be Guerilla marketing which involves use of not very formal strategies for example issuance of free samples, caps and tees.

Pros

The method is cheaper compared to other methods. The method does not require intensive amounts of capital as the ones that the Dove beauty campaign would require.

Cons

However, the company cannot effectively build a brand image as the strategy is so common. Most of the beauty products companies especially the not so well established are using this method. Therefore, using it would not have a big effect on promoting their products.

Second alternative

The second one is cause marketing. In this method, a company is involved in charitable activities in the society and hence wins the public trust in their products.

Pros

This method is effective as philanthropists will recommend the purchase of their products in order to ensure continued support of the sponsorship programs (Barney, 2003 576). The method also improves the image of the company as a whole in the market

Cons

On the other hand, the method is not effective for large firms like the Unilever as the effect of their charitable activities may not be felt across their expansive market. This kind of marketing is suitable for markets which are concentrated in one place.

Third alternative

The third alternative marketing strategy is sports marketing. The firm, unilever through its Dove brand can sponsor sporting activities and sports people. This would include funding numerous tournaments and giving awards to the winners.

Pros

This is advantageous as the fan base appreciates the support of the company by purchasing their products. Sports enthusiasts are likely to establish a close relationship with the companies that involve themselves in such.

Cons

The method however, may be ineffective as not all people in the target market are fans of sports.Therefore, the reach of this marketing strategy will only be limited to sports lovers. It will therefore require backup strategies for it to be effective.

Recommendation

It is highly recommendable that the Dove brand should use the third alternative. Sports marketing would be highly useful to the Dove brand’s management in the attempt to raise its image and increase the aggregate sale (Wesley, 2007, 454). Sports marketing mainly focus in promotion of products through supporting sporting individuals as well as teams. Through this approach, the dove brand can promote some of their physical products as well as the brand name. Sports marketing can be divided into three segments. The company can indulge itself in advertising of sports and sports associations. The company can also support financially teams and individual athletes. The company can also promote sporting activities to the public in order to increase participation. All this measure would uphold the brand image in the market and hence result in an increase in the sales.

Action plan

The campaign was to be kick started with a global survey, by a group of experts on different perceptions of beauty and its impact on ones self-esteem. Consequently, a global report on the same wastoo published. Thereafter, the real campaign of redefining what real beauty of a woman is and bringing to attention of women the different diversities of beauty was carried out using various media was to be rolled out (Wesley, 2007, 5). Hence, dove had to integrate this idea in its own brand image and hence spark discussions by attention seeking campaigns. However, functional advantages of high quality products were to be maintained.

Contingency plan

The company had lain both short and long time backup plans if the Hips feel good campaign backfired. This would include the use of other public relations methods as a short plan remedy if the Dove campaign proved futile to some extent. This would involve spreading of information between the organization and the people around the world and specifically where their target market is especially in Europe and America. On a long term basis, use of integrated marketing communication strategy would work perfectly for the Dove brand (Barney, 2003, 456). This would entail integration of numerous marketing methods from tele-advertising, organization culture to print advertising.

Reference:

Barney, J. (2003).On becoming a strategic partner. New York: Springer LTD

Jonathan, K. (2006). Unilever PLC: Campaigning for real beauty campaign. Encyclopedia of Major Marketing. Vol. 2: pp 1679-1683.

Kelvin, K, Philip, K. (2005). Marketing management. (14th ED). New Jersey

Prentice Hall Pearson.

Wesley, D. (2007). Hips feel good- Dove’s campaign. Ontario: University of western Ontario.