Marketing Case Study - Dove

Caitlin Wharton

MKTG 3010

Dove Case Study

1.  List 4 specific ways Dove® engaged customers through the Dove® Campaign for Real Beauty.

Four specific ways Dove engaged customers was through a video advertising campaign promoting and supporting larger women,  a fund that supported non-profits, a video advertisement involving young women and children, and an ad campaign using “regular” women to promote their new product.  

1. Name all the promotion mix tools used in the Dove® Campaign for Real Beauty.  Describe how each was incorporated into the promotion mix.

The promotion mix tools used were advertising, public relations, and direct and digital marketing.  These were incorporated into their marketing communications mix through many ways.  Advertising was brought in through their campaigns such as the “TickBox” campaign and the “Firming” Campaign. Public relations was incorporated through the strategy created by Stacie Bright and Dove’s public relations agency, in which Dove chose to spark a debate with those rejecting their new mission and ad campaigns.  The team also used influential women to back their idea, and backed their stance by actively setting the goal to encourage and inspire young women.  Finally, direct and digital marketing was incorporated through the contest “Real Ads by Real Women”, in which they targeted women who would inspire other women.  

1. How did Public Relations play a role in the Dove® Campaign for Real Beauty effort? Give specific examples to support your answer.

Public Relations was used to generate a broader awareness for the new campaign, and created an emotional appeal to the campaign. They developed a public relations strategy to coincide with their marketing in order to broaden people’s awareness of the campaign.  

1. Thinking of the Dove® marketing message circa 2007,

1. What was the specific message being sent?

The specific message being sent by Dove marketing in 2007, taken directly from the mission at the time, was that Dove was attempting to make more women feel beautiful rather than women feeling more beautiful.  

1. Who was the target audience?

The target audience was women of any age, race, size, etc.  

1. What media were employed?

Television (TV ads), social media (YouTube), magazines (ads), and outdoor(billboard)  were all employed.  

1. What was the response generated?

The response was highly positive, as in 2006 Dove was one of the ten brands with the greatest percentage gain in brand health and business value in the past three years.  There was a lot of public dialog in response to the campaign, which was one of the main objectives.  

1. What do you think was the communications objective of this campaign?  Support your answer with information from the case.

The marketing objective of this campaign was to get consumers to prefer Dove to other brands through their emotional appeal found in the Real Beauty Campaign.  They did not need to achieve knowledge of the product, as Dove is a very well-known brand.  Dove’s communication objective was to achieve liking, preference, and conviction through the emotional appeal that Dove’s message of real beauty was “the best.”