These days, it seems like everybody is looking for an “authentic” brand message. However, take a quick look around and you’ll notice that brands are usually developed as “static” characters. We find them a distinctive voice, tone, vocabulary, attitude in order to communicate their “uniqueness” and to position them in the market. Ironically, agencies get so wrapped up in developing an “authentic” voice that they lose any chance of creating meanigful connections with consumers.
Why can’t a brand be happy or angry or opinionated?
By giving brands a singular created attitude, we cannot possibly be truly relevant to consumers. You could say agencies kill brands by pigeon-holing them. This calculated, static kind of behavior is so contrary to the reality of being a human being. After years of the same old, same old, consumers undoubtedly stop expecting to be surprised by a brand. In other words, they recognize that this is a perception manufactured by advertisers.
Perhaps this explains why campaigns like “Dove Evolution” generated such a strong reaction. The brand dared to speak directly to women and to call out the beauty industries’ “standard” marketing formula – including their own. This required honesty and self-reflection – qualities that any human being would admire in another human being. Authenticity goes hand in hand with honesty. A brand that dares to be honest, flaws and all, has a real chance of connecting with consumers and of making a meaningful, lasting impression.
Post by Isabelle Quevilly, Mar 30th
Ah the case of Dove…
The first text book case for the digital age… The darling of marketing pundits…
Let’s give Dove its credit: it sure catapulted the brand in the mind of thousands. Considering that it was almost inexistent in popular culture a short little while, that’s a great feet. Secondly, that perceptual footprint seems to be sticking despite big GRP.
Unfortunately, North American sales have taken a different direction. For example, L52W sales of there core business, Shampoo, is down -5.4% while there skincare line is only picking up … well dust.
People tend to forget that a brand stand for a product. No matter how good the advertising, no matter how ”human” the film, the end connection a consumer has is with the ware the brand sells.
This brings it back to a fundamental question, should Dove start marketing its products or continue with the warm & fuzzy & happy & mad & shocking ”meaningful connection marketing” it has embarked on.
Food for though sherpa.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for your interesting comment. I chose Dove as a case study because it was the first example I could think of where a brand offered a direct point-of-view, and a strong one at that.
Upon first reading your comment, I began to reflect on the link between Dove’s message and sales by asking myself specific questions…
- Is it because the strong and direct message Dove created wasn’t reflected in the product itself?
- Could it be that women are unable to escape the beauty/care marketing messages, even if they truly support Dove’s vision?
- Could it be that the campaign’s message related more to make-up products and less to Dove’s range of products (ie make-up versus skin-care-health care…)?
- Is it because the campaign was so different from traditional advertising messages that consumers didn’t “react” to it as they were supposed to because they didn’t link that opinion to a purchase decision.
..but what was the objective of the Dove Evolution campaign? Was it to sell products? Did they really have a greater altruistic mission? Was I looking at this through the right prism? I made some research and learned that the intention of the spot was to invite Canadian women to bring their daughters to the Dove Self-Esteem workshops that were taking place across the country in the Fall of 2006. Within days, the workshops were completely sold out. So in terms of it doing the job it was designed for- it was a true success, especially when you consider that no media was bought and they were relying on women passing on the message.
The piece wasn’t designed to sell products, this is a great reminder to us all that a piece of communication is built on a strategic objective that you allocate a specific budget to in order to achieve specific objectives. Maybe we shouldn’t expect a strategic project to solve more than it is designed to.
Thanks for sharing your point of view Alex, stop by at the office next time you’re around so we can keep the conversation going on with a glass of wine ;)
Just learnt that Seth Godin just evoked this concept during a conference hosted by Infopresse today “We’ve entered the era of emotional marketing”: http://twitter.com/Emergent007
[...] De la même façon que les gens aiment les robots quand on les personnifie en leur attribuant des émotions humaines (joie, peine, remords, compassion…), les communautés aiment les marques à qui elles peuvent attribuer des valeurs humaines, les compagnies qui se comportent et réagissent comme des êtres humains, et non comme des robots animés uniquement par la recherche du profit et du meilleur ROI. En réalité, derrière chaque marque, il y a des hommes et des femmes comme tout le monde, qui ont des sentiments, des émotions, qui mangent et vont aux toilettes tous les jours… bref, il y a des humains. Alors pourquoi ne pas valoriser ce capital humain avant tout autre chose ? Pourquoi une marque ne pourrait-elle pas être contente, en colère, et exprimer ses opinions ? [...]