Dove free essay sample

The advertising endorsement of this campaign was different from the normal advertising campaign in this industry. For example, Dove hired some normal or even slightly over-sized women instead of celebrities as their models to ask the pubic to define whether it is oversized or outstanding. As the matter of fact, this campaign successfully attracted the public attention but it still has certain potential risks. In that case, should the Unilever continue the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty? My answer is positive but with certain reservations due to the fact that the campaign didn’t properly response the issue of culture differences in the global environment. In the following essay, I will analyse the situation and provide some suggestions to illustrate my point of view. SITUATIONAL DIAGNOSIS Should Unilever continue the â€Å"Campaign for Real Beauty†? Nature of the Problem The Campaign for Real Beauty indeed achieved the brand awareness and broke people’s tradition definition of real beauty. However this campaign was controversial to the board of directors of Unilever. From one hand, some people hold the view that this advertising campaign was effective due to the fact that it improved the sales volume of Dove product by increasing the public product awareness. From another hand, some other people argued that this advertising campaign would be too risky for Unilever to continue and suggested that it might receive negative outcome in Asian countries. Because the culture differences in various countries might cause the reverse definition of beauty. Here comes the conflict for the decision-making of Unilever to decide whether to continue this campaign. ADVANTAGES From the Perspective of Public a) New technology changes the social value In the contemporary society, new technology, such as new media, plays an important role on reforming the value system of the public especially for the younger or middle generation. Dove utilised the new technology commercial channel and released this advertising campaign on YouTube. This new social media changes the social value by giving them questions on the topic of what is real beauty and generate discussions of the current trends of social value, for example, the interrelationship between parents and children. It generated volumes of discussion on chat rooms, with contributions on topics like anorexia and heartfelt interchanges between fathers and daughters. † (Deighton, J 2008, p. 6) Therefore, the Unilever should continue the Dove Campaign of Real Beauty because the campaign is beneficial to the public in terms of positively changing the social value. b) Social Trends New role of women Dove propos ed the significance of the natural beauty and tried to change the way people view beauty by carrying out its advertisements. Dove’s mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by broadening the narrow definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves. † (Deighton, J 2008, p. 4) Consequently, this campaign successfully motivated the women to increase their self-confidence and esteem and encouraged them to pay more attention to their outlook. It is advisable for Unilever to support this campaign from the perspective of public because it broke people’s stereotypical value of beauty and generated the new role of women which changes the self-expression value themselves in a positive way and rebuild the self-esteem for women. From the Perspective of the Dove Company a) New technology improves the product awareness Social media has a huge number of audiences and it provides an effective tool to generate the public interest and boost the sales volume by increasing the product awareness of one company. Dove released this campaign on YouTube instead of the traditional way of carrying out the advertisements which was cost-effectively and functional-effective. â€Å"It was among the most downloaded commercials ever to appear on YouTube, and its popularity was the subject of considerable newspaper, radio and television coverage. (Deighton, J 2008, p. 6) Dove improved its brand popularity by using the new media channel which is one of the main reasons that the Unilever should continue the advertising campaign. b) Benefit The beauty and health industry has mass market. According to the survey, only 2% women considered themselves as beauty and more and more females become interested in applying for plastic surgery to change their outlook. The Dove Real Beauty Campaign increased the sale volume of Dove which was beneficial to the turnover of company. And the evidences are obvious according to the revenue growth of Dove Company. It computed that the brand had grown by $1. 2 billion. Much of the growth was attributable to its extension into personal care categories which could be credited to this campaign. † (Deighton, J 2008, p. 7) As we all know, the interest of share holders is the priority for one company to consider when making the decision. Therefore, it is feasible for Unilever to continue the campaign for its own sake. DISADVANTAGES It is conceded that the Dove Real Beauty Campaign was effective and beneficial from the perspectives of both public and the company itself. However, there are two main disadvantages of this campaign which might cause undesirable effect. And Unilever should fairly address these two factors before making any further decisions. a) Negative outcome in the Asian market The Campaign of Real Beauty successfully attracted their target customers and tried to give the public a broader definition of real beauty which reached their own expectation. The problem existed when Unilever launched this campaign all over the world. They neglected the issue of cultural differences and the different way of define beauty between Eastern and Western countries. For example, a lady as the model of Dove might seem to be attractive from the view of people in the Western countries, because feminine beauty in Western countries, a plentiful body with tan skin is considered as a beautiful and sexy lady but it is surprisingly reversed in the Eastern countries. In the Asian countries, this lady might be definitely oversized. In Asian countries, such as China, they define the character of slim body and fair skin as feminine beauty. The model of this campaign might be not attractive from the view of Asian people which cause a negative outcome in the Asian market. b) Potential risk for Dove Continuing the campaign might have potential risk for Unilever to some degree. The advertisement was criticized by some people for choosing some old or heavily freckled ladies as their super model. And some people viewed the models of Dove was too natural and not appealing. â€Å"Taking up the cudgels for reality is a risky strategy for Dove. The underlying idea is appealing; the difficulty is in how to express it. † (Clegg, A 2005) And other example of the undesirable effect is that Dove sponsored the series â€Å"Ugly Betty† in order to improve their product awareness by telling the public that all the girls are beauty as long as you have confident. However, it might ruin the impression of the brand value and lost their target customers if Dove became a brand only for the old, fat and heavily freckled ladies. SUGGESTIONS a) Continue this campaign It is suggested that Unilever should continue the Dove Real Beauty Campaign from the aspects of the public and the company itself. As mentioned above, this campaign used new technology advertising channel to change people’s social value in a positive way and improve the self-esteem for women which was beneficial to the public. And for its own sake, this campaign improved the sales volumes which generate the avenue for the company by using this campaign to improve their product awareness. Therefore, Unilever should support this campaign and manage to achieve greater progress and win the larger market share in the health and beauty sector. b) Adjust the issue of Localization Localization is one of the essential issues to adapt to the external changeable environment. Dove should adjust the issue of cultural difference as the strategy of localization. In order to better adapt to the Asian market, Dove should redesign its advertisement campaign and hire some slim lady with fair skin as their model to attract the Asian customers. In spite of variation in the description of beauty, the marker of health and fertility a small waist has always been an invariant symbol of feminine beauty in Asian countries. (Agence France-Press 2007) Therefore, Unilever should make adjustment on localization when launching this campaign. CONCLUSION To sum up, in my opinion, it is advisable for Unilever to continue the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. Because it changed the social value positively and achieved satisfied profit for the company. Besides that, Unilever should also address the issue of cultural differences when launching this advertisement campaign. References: Agence France-Press (2007) ‘Beauty is defined as a waist† viewed 7th November 2012lt; http://www. cosmosmagazine. com/news/961/beauty-defined-a-waistgt; Clegg, A (2005) ‘Dove Gets Real’ viewed 7th November 2012 lt;http://w ww. brandchannel. com/features_effect. asp? pf_id=259gt; Deighton, J (2008) ‘Dove: Evolution of a Brand’ HBS 9-508-047, 25 March.