Dove’s real beauty: authentic branding?
Tom Asacker poses an interesting question on his a clear eye blog about Dove’s “real beauty” campaign. Here it is:
“As “contemporary marketing” goes, Dove’s campaign is brilliant. But here’s what I’m wondering: Is it authentic, original, neither or both? And more importantly, do people who purchase the Dove brand care one way or the other? Let me elaborate.
Dove is a Unilever brand. But guess what? So is Axe. Uniliver’s Dove celebrates women by encouraging them to take pleasure in their individual beauty. Unilever’s Axe portrays women as a ditsy, sex crazed collective. Same company. Two worldviews. Or at least, that’s how they present themselves to us through their marketing. Truth be told, as consumers, we really have no clue. So pardon the cynicism, but Unilever, therefore, is not being authentic. But here’s the question: Do we care?”
My personal and professional view is that if Unilever was branding the corporation, they should be authentic to the corporation. But when branding two products to two different markets, I think different rules apply.
There are too many types of people and audiences and authenticities out there for any company to be able to address them with one product or approach, and by directing different messages to the different types of audiences, I believe more genuine communication can occur.
Don’t we all like to be “communicated to” in the way we like to be communicated to? I don’t like my husband to talk to me like he talks to his buddies at work, and the Axe audience wouldn’t accept a Dove-type message — do you think?
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