CASE ANALYSIS

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE

The Dove difference has not just come from using more diverse “real” women in its ads.  Dove used
tearjerker ads that express a lot of actions to improve self-esteem of women everywhere. But Dove
nearly lost its audience because of the ad that was posed in Facebook that created many criticisms
across the social media denouncing Dove for Racism. Dove lost communication with customers they
denied and diminish the concerns of the customers. But Dove put up a project called #ShowUs and
partnership with Getty images and Girlgaze to create the world’s largest photo library created by
women and non-binary individuals to shatter beauty stereotypes. Dove hear it and accept its mistake.
Dove believes that listening is the real-beauty within a noisy turbulent world. 

I. Case Point of View

The case is talking about Dove having the best campaign of the past 20 years. It also talks
about Unilever being one of the earliest to adopt corporate sustainability into its business
model and about real beauty ads that would help improve a women's self-esteem. Another
thing is also when they almost lost their audience because of an ad which lead to a lot of
criticism and Dove being labeled as racist. 

II. Statement of the Problem

Dove’s failure of communicating with their consumer’s and strengthening their relationship,
which is a must in every business whether it is a very well-known product or not, has been a
problem face since 2011 and until 2017. Yet after 18 months of their last failure
in communicating with the consumers, which led to massive social media criticism and
global top-tier headlines, they finally decided to make a public apology through their activity
called #ShowUs. Surely, they made an apology after their three mistakes, it sure did have a
massive impact to their company’s reputation. And we cannot deny the fact that a lot of
their consumers may have been shifted to other soap brands because
of companies' involvement towards racism and having dismissive approach to the society’s
voice. 
III. Objectives
Our work builds on the knowledge that Dove’s most salient issues were the failure to act,
listen, and respond to their consumers. Hence this paper intends to find out how Dove can
improve their customer relationship. Each of the objective sets was designed to fulfill this
aim. 

 To move beyond a transactional approach and investing in efforts to listen to the

customers. 
 To actively listen and engage with audiences. 
 To strengthen the relationship with consumers as a purpose-driven brand. 
 Enhance Relationship Development Strategies. 

IV. Areas of Consideration

A. Product Innovation 
Strengths:

 Dove’s product design. The combination of soap and cream 

 Uses real life people for marketing campaigns instead of celebrities 
 They don’t use celebrities to market their product that’s why it saves a lot in
celebrity endorsements 
Weakness:

 Dove majorly focuses in metro and the consumption is in metro only 

 They are not catering the price sensitive market 
Opportunities:

 Give equivalent concentration to men the same as women 

 Improve and strengthen product portfolio 
 Target market is growing 
Threats:

 Competitors with many products to offer to consumers that is not limited to

soap only just like body creams and etc. 
 The price is not budget friendly 
  Competitors tend to copy their products 
B. Marketing strategy 
Strengths:

 Tearjerker Ads that promotes self-esteem to women 

 Diverse women in ads 
 Encourage women to be beautiful in their own ways 
Weakness:

 They deny their mistakes 

 They tend to blind an eye for the people who call out them  
 Minimize Responsibility and scapegoating rather than listening to the public 
Opportunities:

 Developed the communication between Dove and customers by

doing #Showus project 
 They gave motivations to the customers by  
Threats:

 They were not being careful about advertising using people’s skin color. 

 They tried to diminish concerns from customers and excuse their own actions. 

V. Alternatives Courses of Action

1. Innovate products to make the price cheaper without affecting its quality 
Advantages: Products may be cheaper and may be bought by anyone 
Disadvantages: Product innovation and production may take time
2. Create more advertisements focused on what the consumers want  
Advantages: Customer’s relationship with the company may strengthen 
Disadvantages: Cost of the making of advertisements may vary and will depend on the
budget
3. Come back with the functional benefits of the products
Advantages: Dove will educate the customers about the attributes of the product they
are selling
 Disadvantages: The functional groups may not be able to communicate which leads to
the decrease of its flexibility and innovation.
VI. Recommendation
The alternative course two is recommended. Dove is suggested to create more
advertisements focused on what the customers want. It is because they are more focused
on the Real Beauty campaign and nearly lost, its audience. It is suggested that they will
create an advertisement that can strengthen the relationship with its customers. Through
this, the customers will eventually realize that Dove is listening to their concerns about
Dove’s products and they take action about it.