MARKETING ASSIGNMENT

Submitted By: K.P.Saritha

Dove the worlds top cleansing brand Feel good look good

Unilever is a large global company with many brands in its portfolio. Each brand is customized in such a way so as to cater to the tastes and needs of the consumers. The company has a wide range of products in foods, beverages, cleansing agents and personal care segments. The mission of the company is to add vitality to life through its brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. Dove is a personal care product produced by Unilever. Dove came into existence in 1957 as a beauty soap bar. It was clinically proven to be milder for dry sensitive skin. Half of the women across the world have dry skin. Dove provides a wide range of cleansing and personal care that would really make a difference to the condition and feel of hair and skin. It has a host of products across the face, hair and skin categories.

Products
The main Dove products are moisturizing body-wash, deodorants, facial cleansers, body lotions, tools, shampoos and conditioners that would enable them to bring out their true inner beauty. Dove products are mainly concentrated in the US, Europe, UK, Canada and Middle-East. Doves Hair Care Range is now available in India from May 2007. Yahoo! India joined hands with HULs Dove to launch the hair care range in May 2007. The Dove campaign is a good example of what internet can deliver to the brand. The hair care range involves products like shampoos, conditioners, leave-on lotions and revitalizing masks. But it does not seem to have any immediate competition in terms of damage therapy and damage repair.

Dove in India
Dove entered the Indian market as a soap care brand 15 years ago and in the past two years, it has been extended to the body wash and body cream categories. Currently, the companys portfolio in India comprises beauty bars (soap) and cream. Dove has been accepted as a mild moisturizing brand in India. The Indian market is now led by skin but there is already a lot of Dove shampoo being imported into the country. So the Indian consumers are aware of Dove being in hair care. The features and values associated with Doves skin care such as mildness, moisturizing, trust etc are extended to hair care as well.

Dove hair care has moisturizing milk just like its soaps and body washes. Dove products are competitively priced with the LOreal shampoo brands.

Target Customers
To be successful, a company must provide greater customer value and satisfaction. The present day world is a world of hype and stereotypes. The modern woman is independent, in charge and does not have to live with her dark skin- this is the message usually passed on by the global cosmetics and skin care companies. In such a scenario, Dove provides alternatives for women who believe that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. Dove gives importance to how you feel rather than how you look. Dove aims at beauty irrespective of age, shape, or size.

Marketing Strategy
Doves marketing is mainly through advertisements. They have been using real women in their advertisements. Their Campaign for Real Beauty has been featured in major TV channels, newspapers like The Sun, The Times etc and popular womens magazines. Doves revolutionary campaign was for the firming lotion which features women of all shapes and sizes thus breaking down the stereotypic definition of beauty tall, thin and being fair. Their ads have created a ripple in the market with their campaign successfully catching the fancy of both the industry and consumers as being something different. Earlier, the ads used celebrities to promote their beauty products. They are also not for the super skinny models. The Dove ads challenge the traditional concept of beauty.

Certain facts
Just 12% of the women are very satisfied with their physical attractiveness. Only 2% of women describe themselves as beautiful. 68% strongly agree that the media sets an unrealistic standard of beauty. 75% wish the media did a better job in portraying the diversity of womens physical attractiveness including size and shape, across all ages.

As part of their Campaign For Real Beauty, the Dove Self Esteem Fund (DSEF) was launched in 2004. The DSEF was very much committed to its mission to make more women feel beautiful everyday, by widening todays view of beauty and by inspiring women to take care of themselves. This ad was ranked sixteenth out of the 58 ads tested. The DSEF through a series of tools and workshops aims to educate the young girls to free themselves from the shackles of beauty stereotypes. Through the fund, they aim to reach the lives of 5 million young people by the end of 2010, with at least one hour of participation in one of their self-esteem programmes.

The True You Workbook

This programme is targeted at mothers as they play an important role in a girls life. A mother can give her daughter the strength and courage to feel beautiful in a challenging world. Its quite natural for girls to get manipulated during her adolescence when they start questioning the world of beauty around them. But Dove presents it in a very positive way. Getting mothers to talk about it to their children is a very thoughtful step taken by them.

Body Talk
A workshop programme developed in UK to help young girls understand and deal with feelings about their physical appearance, and learn how ideal images of beauty are created.

Controversy
The main controversy faced by Unilever Company is the contradiction in its Axe and Dove ads. On one hand, Dove promises to educate girls on a wider definition of beauty, but Axe ads show boys making nice girls naughty and assuring them the more you spray, the more you get. Unilever response Axe ad projected a mans desire to get noticed and should not be taken literally.

Achievement
Doves Evolution Ad has won two Grand Prix Advertising awards at the Cannes Festival. (Nov 2006)

Conclusion
Dove has helped women to feel good. This good feeling from within helps one to attain more out of life by making them more confident and raising their self-esteem. They can embrace life with sincerity. It helps women feel beautiful from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Dove aims at beauty at every age. Dove helps a woman to celebrate her own inner beauty.

References
www.dove.com www.hindubusinessline.com in.answers.yahoo.com www.dove.ca www.campaignforrealbeauty.com www.unilever.com en. Wikipedia.org www.labnol.org www.behindthebuzz.com economictimes.indiatimes.com www.nytimes.com www.doveselfesteemfund.com