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Dove: Building Customer Relationships Everywhere, One Gender at a Time

When it comes to consumer-packaged goods, Unilever is about as big as they come. One of the leading suppliers of food, home, and personal care products, Unilever products can be found in a whopping 7 out of 10 homes globally, are available in over 190 countries, and are used by more than 2 billion people on a daily basis. Having this kind of global scope is rare, and with revenues of more than $64 billion per year, you'd think that Unilever would be content to slow down a bit and tend to the businesses at hand. Instead, Unilever has set a goal to double its revenues by the year 2020.

How does Unilever do it? By continually creating and developing brands that form strong relationships with consumers in multiple consumer product market segments. If Unilever's portfolio of brands overlooks certain types of customers, then the company creates or acquires a new brand. This "house of brands" approach has made Unilever the proud owner of powerhouse brands such as Noxzema, Ragu, Axe, Ben & Jerry's, Slim-Fast, Hellmann's, Q-tips, Vaseline, Wish-Bone, and Dove, to name just a few.

Dove: Made for Women?

Take Dove, for example. Dove is the number-one brand of personal cleansing products in the United States, with a product portfolio that includes beauty bars, body washes, face care treatments, deodorants, body mists, hair care products, and styling aids. All by itself, the Dove brand pulls in over $2 billion a year for Unilever. But coming off its very successful long-term "Campaign for Real Beauty," Dove was starting to experience the stagnation that many mature brands face. Dove found that it was reaching the limits of expansion and the types of extensions it could support. After stumbling in its efforts to penetrate the hair care market, Unilever managers knew that Dove needed to discover a new way to grow.

Dove had always been an undeniably feminine brand. Everything about Dove's brand imageits name, logo, color palette, and communicationswas created with women in mind. Although this laser-focused targeting had been a primary factor in the brand's decades-long success, ironically, it had become the brand's greatest limiting factor, especially given the rapid growth in the men's personal care products category. Could Dove sell its products to men? This question left Unilever managers conflicted. Success would provide the much-needed expansion for the brand. However, attempting to get men to perceive Dove as a manly brand risked damaging the brand's successful image among women. Additionally, Unilever already had a wildly successful men's personal care brand in Axe. However, with Dove, Unilever would be targeting men not interested in Axe's edgyat times even risquand youthful image. Positioning Dove for men would require great care.

Breaking Out of the Box

Dove supported its decision to enter the men's care market with a comprehensive strategy and genuine consumer insight. Rather than simply releasing products designed for men under the standard Dove brand, Unilever created a brand within the brandDove Men+Care. This sub-brand provides a masculine foundation and much-needed separation from the core Dove brand. But just as important, Men+Care was extendable into virtually any type of men's personal care product. Dove also appealed to men through packaging design. With a base color of dark grey and a masculine palette of accent colors, the very appearance of Dove Men+Care products left no question as to the intended target customer.

Unilever's highly successful Axe personal care line targets single men age 24 and under who have an active interest in socializing and dating. So, by contrast, Dove Men+Care took aim at men age 25 to 54. Research revealed that men in this distinctive demographic were evolving. Typically married, they were taking on more household duties like cleaning and shopping than similarly aged men in prior decades. More than half of men in this category were buying their own personal care products, and most of the rest were influencing those purchases.

The first products in the Dove Men+Care portfolio were skin care items. The line included three body washes, two bar soaps, and a shower scrub, products strategically designed to complement each other. The idea was to appeal to "men who are comfortable in their own skin," but who were receptive to the proven moisturizing power of Dove products. Dove is one of the few personal care brands that most men had in their homes growing up. So there was an established level of brand recognition and brand knowledge.

Shortly after introducing the initial products, Dove added an antiperspirant to the Men+Care line. More recently, Dove Men+Care has become a more full-spectrum brand that includes facial care and hair care products. With its line of facial care products, Dove urges men to "Take better care of your face," whereas its hair care products promise, "3X stronger hair." These new product lines extend Dove's heritage in cleansing, moisturization, and providing the ultimate care.

The Dove Men+Care facial care products are designed to complement each other by helping men care for their skin in three easy steps: facial cleansing (cleanser that fights dryness), shaving (shaving gel that prevents irritation), and face care (post-shave balm sooths skin and a moisturizer that hydrates and protects). Dove's research revealed that 48 percent of men in the United States never use face wash and 46 percent never use a face moisturizer, even though most men admit they know they should. Rob Candelino, vice president of Unilever Skincare, explains the insight behind the facial care products and their positioning:

Men today have a great deal to care about, from their families to their careers, but they don't always give their personal care the same level of attention. Neglecting to properly cleanse and moisturize their skin, or doing so but using harsh products like regular soap, all contribute to a man's face looking tired and feeling worn. New Dove Men+Care Face products seek to help men eliminate needless torture from their grooming routine and help put their best face forward when it matters most.

Unilever has taken great care to craft promotional messages consistent with the brand image of Dove Men+Care. The launch of its facial care products was accompanied by an ad showing the abuse a man's face takes. Snowballs, motor oil, pokes from a child, windburn from a roller coaster, and "deserved" slaps provided illustration for the tagline, "End the face torture." A series of follow-up ads showed real men describing their typical face care routine (soap, no moisturizer, stinging aftershave) followed by the results they experience ("It feels tight," "It doesn't feel good at all," and "Definitely stings").

Most recently, Dove has taken its advertising for Men+Care to a new level. According to Candelino, "We hear from 73 percent of men that they're falsely or inaccurately depicted in advertising." Specifically, says Candelino, the common depictions of men in advertising can be boiled down to three categories: guys obsessed with winning the affections of women, he-men who are into stereotypical manly activities such as body building or fast cars, and dads who are seen more as buffoons than respected parents. So Dove Men+Care launched a campaign to combat these caricatures as much as build its own brand. Called "Real Moments," the campaign promotes real-life fatherhood tales from father figures like Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade. Having just written a book entitled A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball, Wade was the perfect celebrity to give his endorsement. "When fans learn that playing 'Defense' for Dwyane Wade means teaching his sons how to guard a mini-hoop in his living room, instead of a fellow player during a professional game," says Candelino, "it hits home where men today place prioritycaring for their family comes first."

An Instant Success

In a short period of time, Dove has accomplished a great deal. It successfully stepped outside the established boundaries of a brand created to target a specific market segmentwomen. In breaking beyond segment, the brand has become an authority on men's personal grooming. And Dove has done this without alienating its core segment of women.

Unilever's investment in Dove as a men's care brand seems to have paid off. Shortly after the new Dove Men+Care line debuted, SymphonyIRI put the new brand on its list of top 10 new products. In an annual study of most desirable brands, Dove ranked fourth among both women and men. Best of all for Unilever, Dove's previously flat overall sales rose 9.8 percent in Men+Care's first year on the market. It seems that Dove's stated objective for Dove Men+Care, to "allow men to better care for themselves so they can care for what matters most to them," is right on target.

Questions for Discussion

1- Using the full spectrum of segmentation variables, describe how Dove segments and targets the market for personal care products.

2- Which market targeting strategy is Dove following? Justify your answer.