Dove, Axe Controversy: New Chapter in Marketing?
Is Unilever a hypocrite or just doing good brand marketing as usual? Here’s the controversy: Dove’s successful “Campaign for Real Beauty” introduced a video called “Onslaught” this fall educating girls on a wider definition of beauty, warning of the onslaught of typical beauty industry messages about what makes a beautiful woman (plastic surgery, bulimia, etc.), and advising parents to “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.”
At the same time AXE, another Unilever brand, introduced some videos that depict women in just the opposite way — sex-crazed, busty, near-naked Amazons.Then comes this Dove-AXE mash-up spoof video, with the line ” Talk to your daughter before Unilever does.”
Since then there has been a blizzard of media articles, like this Op-Ed in the Boston Globe, “A company’s ugly contradiction” by Michelle Gillett.
“But the launching of “Onslaught,” the most recent of Unilever’s efforts to foster self-esteem, has also launched a controversy about the sincerity of its commitment to “real beauty.” …Viewers are struggling to make sense of how Dove can promise to educate girls on a wider definition of beauty while other Unilever ads exhort boys to make “nice girls naughty” and assure them, “the more you spray, the more you get” in the Axe deodorant body spray ads.”
Business school marketing courses taught us to create brands that connect with the target audience’s values and appeal to them emotionally, which both Dove and Axe seem to be doing superbly well, especially when you look at the revenue and market share growth of these two brands over the past few years.
In this new world of transparency, do branding “best practices” need to be rewritten? Instead of “connecting” with artificially constructed brands, do people want to connect with companies whose values and causes they identify with? Do people want “relationships” with brands or with the companies and people behind the brands?
I think the Unilever controversy shows that people want to buy from companies they like and identify with, not brands. A new marketing mash-up is in the making — branding and corporate reputation. The new stars won’t be the ad agencies, but the company’s leadership team.
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November 27th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Indeed. We were debating this on my blog 10 months ago, prior to the launch of Onslaught. Take a look at some of the comments: http://www.tinyurl.com/33oxof
November 27th, 2007 at 8:04 am
Tom,
Thanks for pointing me to your thread about the Dove/Unilever "authenticity" discussion. Fascinating.
Lois
November 27th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Thanks for pointing out this really fascinating clash. Do you think it’s possible for a company to say, "here’s a problem we see" and also, "here’s some creative marketing that, yes, probably is an example of the problem, but we’re still committed to solving the problem"? I remember a few months back your post praising the highly creative commercials AXE was posting on Youtube. I agreed that they were funny and that the new advertising venue was creative, and didn’t notice a problem with them. Is it necessary that we brand Unilever’s actions as hypocrisy and, if so, where do we draw the lines in what is creative in advertising and what is harmful?
November 27th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
I honestly believe it’s just targeting your audience. The Dove and Axe audience is at 2 ends of the spectrum, so fittingly, their marketing is as well. Any meaning or message behind it is a side effect of the marketing, and Unilever is in business to sell their products, not save the world.
don’t fault the company for smart marketing just because a small percentage (and the percentage of people that post/comment on blogs pertaining to this is a very small percentage) might be offended. It’s just business.
Anthony
November 28th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
First, at the risk of looking completely wet around the ears (oh well, let’s face it - I am), what’s a mash-up, Obi Wan?
Second – and sadly - isn’t the very thought that anything was - or ever could be - ‘just business’ what’s really in question here?
I’m a life coach. Frankly, there’s lots of us around (far more than there are personal care products for men, at last count). What distinguishes me from my peers are just two things: being able to deliver what a prospect needs from me & ME. Who I am. What I stand for. The way I stand for it.
Values lived have become ’brand’. And by their very nature, values won’t be played, positioned or purchased.
Recall, if you will, Tylenol’s values-driven position after tainted bottles surfaced back in the 80’s. Merely brillant positioning?
If what my fairly recent forays into the world of social media have taught me is true, free agency and the transparency that goes with it means the big folks can’t as easily play at positioning now any more than we little ones can. And with the balancing of the visibility scales, we’re all just getting around to admitting there’s a big old elephant in the room and its name is ‘artificial’.
Curran’s thought - about the possibility of still being in the problem as you dedicatedly work through the problem - seems right on the mark to me. Works that way for people in the midst of creating personal change; can’t see why it wouldn’t apply to a company.
But as a previous post from this very BLOG pointed out just weeks ago, sometimes it takes a near death experience for people (and companies) to see what’s really up (and on the way down).
It would seem Faith Popcorn really did know what she was talking about (sometimes), and about how hard being real could be (see her book EVEolution).
For the record, I (still) find the AXE piece hysterically irreverent while simultaneously agreeing with the Dove campaign. Far as I can tell they’re both poking at different sides of the same general bugaboo: it’s why they’re poking at either in the first place that’s in question.
In the end, as a hip consumer cruising the Blogosphere via the mighty 2.0 , I can now require my product producers genuinely stand for the positions they take or simply take my loyalty and purchasing power somewhere else.
Hey, it’s just business.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Lissa,
As always really enjoy your perspectives. Will be interesting to see how long business tries to make that big old elephant in the room dance — without getting hurt.
Fear not– a mash up is simply combining two things to make one, e.g., taking parts of the Dove video and parts of the Axe video and putting them together. Many entrepreneurs are also mashing up elements of different software applications to create something new from stuff that exists. In fact, there’s a whole other cult of mash-up conferences, boot camps and events. Creativity is thriving…just not in some of the places we most need it like health care and education.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Ah - mash-up! Got it. Conferences? Must explore. Me likes creativity. Many thanks, Master Foghound.
Michael Katz over at http://www.bluepenguindevelopment.com just published a related, smart and hysterically funny piece many might find worth checking out.
BTW, is it just me or does every newcomer feel a little like a foreign exchange student out here for a while?
And just noodling, but couldn’t Unilever (or any company/person finding themselves in a similar situation) go public with something like this by thanking social media players for shedding light on the paradox problem, discussing the challenges of being in it while working through it AND invite all – social media and their constituency (which could be one and the same) - to join them in the process of working through it?
Big, I know, but wouldn’t that build relationship, deepen trust, foster loyalty, engage creative conversation, spark word of mouth, demonstrate commitment and values - all while being exactly where they’re at? And wouldn’t that put them in a leadership position without making the elephant dance?
In other words, if this is seen as an opportunity to open up and lead by example rather than as time hunker down and make the elephant dance damage control…
Lissa