Digital Marketing Strategies of Dove: A Detailed Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Dove's digital marketing strategies, examining how the brand leverages various social media platforms, particularly Facebook and Twitter, to build brand awareness and engage with its target audience. It delves into specific campaigns like #NoLikesNeeded and Real Beauty Sketches, highlighting their impact and effectiveness in promoting Dove's core values of self-esteem and body positivity. The report also discusses Dove's mobile campaigns and their approach to building a lifestyle experience for customers. Furthermore, it addresses the importance of quick responsiveness in the digital space, referencing instances where Dove's social media presence faced criticism and the subsequent actions taken by the brand. Overall, the report underscores the significance of digital marketing for global brands like Dove, emphasizing its ability to offer a cost-effective means of reaching a vast and targeted audience while fostering real-time interaction and brand awareness. This report is a student submission on Desklib, a platform providing AI-powered study tools and resources.

Running Head: DIGITAL MARKETING
DIGITAL MARKETING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Name

1DIGITAL MARKETING
Executive Summary:
Digital media marketing techniques are definitely on rise as more and more marketers are
steadily understanding and harnessing its power to make the best use of this global platform.
Thus, in this project report the characteristics of digital media marketing would be analyzed in
details and in perspective of how a particular global brand in incorporating it in its marketing
strategy. The brand chosen for this is Dove.

2DIGITAL MARKETING
Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Discussion:.......................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................6

3DIGITAL MARKETING
Introduction:
Digital marketing is considered as the new technological boon for the business to make it
more rapid and large in the global market. Digital marketing ensures a far wider and bigger
market exposure ensuing a cost-effective method compared to the traditional counterparts. The
biggest benefit of digital marketing is it incorporates both a personal approach as well as a
mass appeal for the audience as it incorporates the application of multimedia platforms which
in turn helps the business firm better address the needs of the audience. It enables twenty four
seven interaction with the target audience and increases niche market penetration. Thus
apart from generating better conversion rates it is also beneficial in plugging out more revenue as
compared to the traditional marketing initiatives. This has been proven in a survey, conducted by
Google in association with IPSOS Hong Kong that digital market is beneficial in raising 2.8
times better revenue growth. Thus it has been identified as a raising trend among business houses
to incorporate strategic digital marketing techniques in their marketing initiatives. The Global
brand that has been chosen for this report is Dove.
Discussion:
Dove is recognized as a personal are brand which is owned by Unilever which
specifically originated in United States but today has its presence in more than 150 countries.
Since it very inception the brand has always stood by the notion of uplifting the confidence of
woman and making them feel comfortable in their own skin. Dove has always believed that
beauty goes beyond what meets our eyes and there is no beauty without confidence. Dove
through its varied marketing campaigns has tried to address the serious issue of inferiority

4DIGITAL MARKETING
complex that women often feel based on certain set standards of beauty and has always
worked towards breaking these taboos to uplift the self-esteem of every individual. The
predominant appeal of the brand is its usage of common faces of woman as they strictly avoid
using faces of models or any celebrities and refrain from digitally distorting or editing faces to
make it eye appealing.
Dove started its advertising journey with print medium in the year 1957, since then it has
never looked back and has eventually emerged in its advertising and marketing strategy. Dove
brought a significant change in its marketing objective in the 90s with its television campaigns
and a new milestone was created in 2004 when the brand a launched its “Campaign for Real
Beauty”. Addressing its social media presence, Dove is recorded to have the highest number of
followers over the social media platforms as compared to various other top brands like Olay or
Ivory. Dove ensures its social media presence through multiple platforms that is it has a huge
presence on its own official website along with Facebook, twitter, Instagram as well as through
its digital application for android and IOS platform users. Dove’s entrance in the digital media
market is considered as a very vital step towards building up the customer base because it is a
global brand and therefore demands global exposure
Here the social medium platform that would be focused on is Facebook. The official
Facebook page of Dove has more than 25.6 million followers. The platform is used proactively
to sell the brand image rather than just the products. One of the most popular digital marketing
campaign of Dove that was launched in Facebook was #NoLikesNeeded campaign. It was a
part of their self-esteem project specifically meant to address the issue of social approval that
individuals tend to seek whenever they upload anything on any social media platform. The

5DIGITAL MARKETING
campaign was to help woman appreciate themselves and not wait for receiving approval from the
mass. Social media bullying and body shaming is a very common incident that the users are
often exposed to .Thus is such a situation Dove with this social media campaign aimed at helping
woman feel confident in their own skin and leave behind the fear of being rejected or criticized
by the society and making them realize that the only ‘like’ that actually made any difference is
their own. Another significant campaign that took social media by storm was Real beauty
sketches, a video that helped in igniting a wider and broader definition of beauty. This short film
went viral because it could easily touch millions of heart because of its simplistic way of
forwarding a very important message which was it is important to appreciate and recognize one’s
beauty through one’s own eyes before expecting it from someone else. Apart from Facebook
another significant social media platform that is used very profoundly by Dove and needs a
mention is Twitter. In 2014, Dove noticed that there was a large increase in spread of negative
comments on social media objectifying woman’s beauty by women themselves. Thus to address
this issue Dove in 2015 began its campaign #Speak Beautiful which aimed at bringing a greater
behavioral change on a mass scale that would promote body positivity. Dove is quite successful
in using its digital media for marketing its vision and objectives as well as proactively
communicating with the users on real-time basis. Another significant milestone in the process of
expanding its digital marketing efforts was the launch of mobile campaigns by Dove that was
trough their digital application mobile platforms. Dove has always laid greater emphasis on
promoting itself not just as any other personal care brand but establish itself as a lifestyle and
extended themselves as a memorable experience to its customers.
Social media marketing thus stands as a very strong pillar for building brand awareness
as well as in achieving a target market approach through strategic digital marketing techniques.

6DIGITAL MARKETING
Brands are increasing their engagement on social media platforms to help connect better with
the audience as well as generate brand awareness on a real time basis. To make better use of
social media platforms the marketers need to be aware of the actual potentials of this significant
platform. However there have been instances were a social media move made by the company
brought in humongous bad name for the firm. The main reason being unawareness about the
actual potentials of this media platform. For instance Dove faced immense criticism when it
released a series of racist images that deemed the social prestige of black women. It took the
social media to storm and the global audience base reverted back and protested against such
racists stand taken by the brand. However Dove was quick enough to understand its mistake and
issue immediate tweet regarding seeking forgiveness for this grave mistake and removed all the
materials pertaining to this racist advertisement. This is exactly what one needs to remember
while employing social media as one of their primary marketing tools. Anything on social
media be it positive or negative intends to spread like wildfire. Therefore one needs to be
very quick and always alert while going digital in their marketing approach.
Conclusion:
Thus in this present era of global marketing, digital marketing seems to be of immense
priority for the global brands as well as local brands who wish to make it global. It is a
significant way of extending “better value” for the goods or services which are chosen by the
consumer as it enables them to interact with different other buyers through chats, blogs and
comments, get a thorough defined access to peer reviews and gauge its popularity on real
time basis through innovative technologies like pay per click advertisements. It extends
greater and better value of the goods and services for both the buyer and the seller. For the seller

7DIGITAL MARKETING
digital marketing serves very beneficial and a cost effective means as the reach is vast as well as
targeted while for the buyers they get a three sixty degree exposure about the brands, its
vision, its mission, its corporate standing apart from just an overview of the goods or
services being sold. Thus, digital marketing is the new tool for this generation business houses.