MKT302 Digital Marketing Strategy: Dove Case Study & Enhancement

This report analyzes Dove's digital marketing strategy, identifying failures and proposing improvements through social media implementation. The analysis focuses on a controversial advertisement that negatively impacted Dove's brand image and discusses how it contradicted the company's mission of promoting real beauty. The report then details the strategic use of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to rebuild Dove's reputation and better connect with its target audience. For Facebook, the strategy involves promoting events and social activities related to women's empowerment. Instagram is suggested as a platform to showcase the brand's culture and purpose through visually appealing content. Twitter is recommended for direct consumer interaction and addressing customer queries. The overall goal is to leverage these platforms to convey Dove's values, increase consumer engagement, and rectify past marketing missteps. Desklib offers a range of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to support students in understanding and applying digital marketing strategies.

Running head: DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital Marketing
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Executive Summary
This report had analysed the digital marketing of Dove to identify the failures in their
marketing strategy and provide valid justifications for their failures. The next part of the
report had aimed at developing and implementing marketing strategies by using social
marketing instruments and platforms. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter has been selected as
the social media platforms and the report will depict the implementation of these platforms
according to Dove’s product requirements. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are three
different platform so the approach to these social media platforms had been diverse.
Facebook should be used for promoting different events and social activities of the
organization. Instagram should be used for portraying the culture and the purpose of the
organization and Twitter should be used to communicate directly to the consumers in order to
answer to their queries.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of digital marketing strategy in Dove..........................................................................3
Target customer of Dove............................................................................................................4
Implementation of Facebook......................................................................................................4
Implementation of Instagram.....................................................................................................7
Implementation of Twitter.........................................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Digital marketing strategy is one of the major aspect of the marketing campaigns of
global companies. Digital marketing is a must for companies in order to maintain their long
term sustainability and competitive advantage. This report will analyse the digital marketing
of Dove to identify the failures in their marketing strategy and provide valid justifications for
their failures. The next part of the report will aim at developing and implementing marketing
strategies by using social marketing instruments and platforms. Facebook, Instagram and
Twitter has been selected as the social media platforms and the report will depict the
implementation of these platforms according to Dove’s product requirements.
Analysis of digital marketing strategy in Dove
Digital marketing has become one of the most power medium in the current
marketing world and the companies have to be careful about the way they portray their
products. In case of Dove, they posted an advertisement into their social medium platform
which has been criticized by the users. The advertisement featured a black model taking her
shirt off having a similar colour to her skin to become a white women wearing a shirt that is
similar to her skin tone. This advertisement has hurt the sentiment of the Facebook users and
has been considered as racist content (Slawson 2017). The awareness of people regarding
these controversial topics have increased significantly and the message has been portrayed
wrongly. The context that Dove marketing team was wrongly formulated as it is very easy to
take it out of context. Moreover, the message posted by the organization can be considered as
racist as the message that the advertisement was trying to convey was the fact that by using
the product developed by Dove, the consumers can become white which signifies the white is
the benchmark of looking good and having a darker skin colour means that people are ugly
(Tiago and Veríssimo 2014). This portrayal will definitely affect the consumers as majority

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of the consumers can very interpret the underlying message. The digital marketing strategy
failed and they had to take down that offensive post as the content could be easily taken out
of context and be used against them.
Target customer of Dove
Dove has aimed to provide women with different shapes, sizes and colours with real
beauty. Therefore, the target market of the brand consist of women having different ethnicity,
colour and backgrounds. The digital marketing campaign was different to the products
offered by the company was contradictory to their unique selling proposition and the mission
of the company. The dove commercials have already tried to portray that the standards that
the women are trying to achieve are beyond the realistic point of view and in order obtain the
perfect beauty they will have to alter their own true self (Austen-Smith et al. 2017). On the
contrary, the Facebook advertisement has given a message which is contradictory to their
unique selling proposition which is a class example of stereo typing. A large section of the
target consumers are black women and other women having different skin colour. Thus, by
developing such an advertisement Dove clearly deviated from the current needs and wants of
the consumers in the market. Moreover, this advertisement have dented their 13 years long
successful campaign of real beauty as fundamentally the advertisement was different from
their campaign objective and offensive to target consumers.
Implementation of Facebook
In order to accommodate Facebook into the digital marketing strategy of Dove, the
organization will have to leverage the already existing traffic to the organisational website.
This can be done by linking the Facebook page with the brand website and make use of
Facebook advertisements. Moreover, the organization will have to develop a schedule and
timeline for regular posting of relevant news and quotes that will define the brand. Moreover,

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the as brand aimed to empower women they will have to conduct events regarding women
empowerment and post updates regarding these events so that customers are aware of the
efforts taken by the organization (Effing and Spil 2016). This will convey the appropriate
message to the target consumers regarding their stand of Dove and will help in easing the
negative impact of their digital blunder. Moreover, the organization will have to intertie
social media sharing which will facilitate the users to share the organizational Facebook page.
Dove should also incorporate a notification button so the registered consumers get
mortifications on different user devices. Dove can also launch contests on regular basis where
the users can participate in a contest if they like and share the organizational official
Facebook page. This will improve the market penetration of the organization.

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Implementation of Instagram
The majority of the users on the Instagram platform are between the age group of 19-
29. Therefore, it is essential for the organization to identify the appropriate demographics
according to the reach of the consumers. Dove will have to focus on visual sharing where
they have made a big blunder and these will be able to represent the different aspect of the
organizational culture. Moreover, creating a stunning and eye catching visual that will attract
all the target consumer in crucial in this contest. The interaction between the users and the
brand will have to be more instantaneous and casual (Gao et al. 2018). Therefore, the main
goals of the organization on Instagram should be demonstration of the brand culture, increase
the awareness about the brand, increasing engagement of consumers, and connect with
influencers on social media websites and driving sales by diverting data traffic. Therefore, the
organization will have to develop the content theme, ratio and medium. Moreover, Dove will
have to maintain aesthetics of the brand so that the branding remains consistent. The
organization should use appropriate hashtags to reach out to more consumers in the market.

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Implementation of Twitter
Twitter is a micro blogging site and the strategy implemented for twitter will be quite
different from the social media website. The main goals of the organization on Platform like
Twitter should be information and content sharing, using promotional activities for
engagement, branding, networking, consumer interaction and management reputation.
Interaction and communication is one of the major activities on Twitter and Dove will have
to increase their consumer engagement (Leung, Bai and Stahura 2015). Moreover, the tweets
must be controversial so that it provokes interaction and discussion between the different
users. The tweets must have different dimensions to it and should not be one dimensional in
nature. Twitter is medium which can also be used to help out the consumers that are facing
different issues. Therefore, by solving the problems of the different users in the market the
organization can increase their following on the social media platform.

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Conclusion
The report has been able to develop effective digital marketing strategies that will be
able to make up for the lost reputation, criticism and negative publicity they faced from the
consumers. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are three different platform so the approach to
these social media platforms will be diverse. Facebook should be used for promoting

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different events and social activities of the organization. Instagram should be used for
portraying the culture and the purpose of the organization and Twitter should be used to
communicate directly to the consumers in order to answer to their queries.

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References
Austen-Smith, D., Galinsky, A., Chung, K.H. and LaVanway, C., 2017. Unilever's Mission
for Vitality. Kellogg School of Management Cases, pp.1-13.
Effing, R. and Spil, T.A., 2016. The social strategy cone: Towards a framework for
evaluating social media strategies. International journal of information management, 36(1),
pp.1-8.
Gao, H., Tate, M., Zhang, H., Chen, S. and Liang, B., 2018. Social Media Ties Strategy in
International Branding: An Application of Resource-Based Theory. Journal of International
Marketing.
Leung, X.Y., Bai, B. and Stahura, K.A., 2015. The marketing effectiveness of social media in
the hotel industry: A comparison of Facebook and Twitter. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism
Research, 39(2), pp.147-169.
Slawson, N. 2017. Dove apologises for ad showing black woman turning into white one.
[online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/08/dove-
apologises-for-ad-showing-black-woman-turning-into-white-one [Accessed 3 Jun. 2018].
Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why
bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.