Insight
Dove as a brand speaks as the voice of real women. The message was well maintained and captured by the audience but the challenge was to cultivate the brand lovers at a same place and connect them with their stories. The task was to gather the staunch brand lovers where they showed their connection with their loved ones and the interactions grew.
The brand followers were to be routed from the television to the digital landscape, the mechanics and usage pattern difference was a major factor that had to be dealt with a crisp and effective communication in order to retain and grow the fans. As a brand, the share of endorsement was hugely aided by its Love Dove campaign, where two friends were shown having a good time and enjoying the glory of their beautiful hair.
Taking the same thought forward, the brand supplemented the digital campaign with the concept of friendship and how vital is a good friend to a woman and her personal life. With a cut throat competition Dove shines amidst other brands with the care that it offers to its consumers. The liberation came for the users as there were no beauty standards defined and in case of hair care the quintessential long straight hair were not the only result but healthy curly and wavy hair were shown to highlight the brand for people who believed in beauty beyond the defined parameters.
Strategy
Consumers today not only want the best results but also look for value for money. They now want the solution that will appease their needs as well as be a reflection of their personality. Dove as a brand has been synonymous with acknowledging the real beauty and confident women, and the users find it as a solution that gives them real care. Most importantly that Dove does not alter but highlight your real beauty. So, with the need for beauty the users also stress on maximum value and its remedy for complete care and expert repair for damage is Dove.
The users were effectively reached with a crafted communication of “Real bonds of friendship”. Since, the consumers believed in the sisterhood and the celebration of bonds, Dove garnered the communication around the same proposition. Each platform was used so that the message was effectively assimilated for the users and they participated in the campaign. The communication was conveyed in phases by first getting prominent people to endorse the application on Facebook. Then hype was created by using print, radio and music shows were used to increase the buzz about the Facebook page and its compatibility test for the real bonds of friendship.
The big idea was to bring friends closer by enticing them to test their compatibility and get a chance to win many exciting prizes. Daily gifts added more glitter to the communication attracting more participants to the contest.
Execution
Digital users are people who are highly social and value their friends. So the compatibility test hit right notes with the correct audience who wanted to test their equation with friends. Also, this test started a cycle as the other person in the test received notifications about it and the positive word of mouth spread as more people wanted to take the test.
The strategy was just not to gratify users but also reward them; this was done by picking lucky winner daily and weekly hence pumping up the excitement on the page and ensuring more interaction.
Users today look for validation from beauty experts and to cover this aspect of the consumer side the activation was perfected by inviting top five beauty bloggers and chief editors of beauty magazines. These bloggers and editors came with a friend to the spa and became a part of testimonials as well as played the compatibility app. This not only created content and stories for the page but also pulled more followers who resorted to read their beauty blogs and reviews. So the brand got users from digital and print zone to the Facebook page which was hub of all interactions.
The cherry on top was the Dubai trip ticket given to two lucky winners along with their best friend with a generous $500, the testimonial videos and photos were taken to construct more content and highlight the success of the campaign as well as lure fans for the next campaign.
Results
Dove “Real bonds of friendship” was an instant hit on the Facebook page and also key brand indicators of Dove rose at a high rate. There was a surge of 70% in the digital community of Dove in 4.5 weeks. It occupied the fourth slot in global rankings of People Talking About factor. Largest chunk of audience viewing the page was from the cosmopolitan cities Karachi and Lahore.
The app not only served 649,756 viral impressions but also created plenty of stories where the users shared their pleasure of rewards and compatibility with the brand.
The brand awareness for Dove shot up 7.4% plus the top of mind factor surged by 8.45%. The proposition of repairing damaged hair by Dove increased by a whopping 25% while the conviction increased by 6% after the campaign.
All in all the campaign not only wrapped successfully but was flagged as a highly successful and interactive campaign where happy stories were made and shared about bonds of friendship meanwhile, the brand perception was elevated in the users minds with its simple and strong message.