MARKETING

PLAN OF DOVE

Submitted By :- Submitted To :-
Viral Doshi Prof. Prakash Pandit
(19BSP3252)
  Executive Summary
Dove is one of Unilever’s better known personal care brands among women in
many countries.Dove had experienced a decline in sales and wanted to
determine why that was the case. Kerstin Dunleavy, brand manager for Unilever’s
Dove line was given the task to help in the re-launch for Dove beauty products.
Through strong marketing research and consumer surveys Dove decided to
focus their campaign on using emotional appeals by helping to increase self-
confidence in women. Expressed through creative marketing and advertising
campaigns Dove has sense seen success in regards to their brand image and
the overall sales of their products. After the debut of the “Selfies” short film,
Dunleavy is now faced with the decision of what to do next. She needs to
come up with a strategy to make sure Dove continues to have success as a
brand.
Dunleavy has three alternatives to choose from. The first alternative
would be to continue with the current Real Beauty marketing strategy by using
emotional appeal tactics. An advantage to this alternative is that Dove knows
this works. A disadvantage would be that some consumers might get bored
with the campaign. The second alternative would be to stick with targeting
Real Beauty, but to showcase how the consumer can acquire this by
showcasing the features of the products in the campaigns. An advantage is
the consumer would know more about the product. For instance Dove soap
helps to improve skin texture and brightness.
A disadvantage to featuring the products more the Real beauty models is that the
campaigns end up appearing similar to that of other beauty product
campaigns.
The last alternative would be to target men as well as women in the Real
Beauty campaign. An advantage to this would be acquiring a different
type of customer. The disadvantage to this strategy is that the
“Real Beauty” campaign may have no effect on whether men would want
to buy Dove’s skin care products.
I would recommend that Dove stick with their current strategy of the
Real Beauty Campaign by targeting the emotional appeals of women. This
strategy has helped to make Dove a household name.
  Situation Analysis
Kerstin Dunleavy, brand manager for Unilever’s Dove line, was given the
task to help with the re-launch for Dove beauty products. The beauty industry is
highly competitive and Dove was looking for some type of competitive advantage
to set themselves apart in an industry where the differences between
competitors are few and far between. In the second phase of the re-
launch Dunleavy was given the task to place an emphasis on targeting
consumer emotions rat her than on the attribut es and f unctional
aspects of their beaut y products. Dove had experienced a decline in
sales and wanted to determine why that was the case.

 Market Summary
The personal care & skincare brand love is the flagship brand of the FMCG giant
Unilever. It was introduced by the MNC in the year 1957 & initially
the products were launched for women later on the brand
has extended its product lines by making products available for Men and Baby
segment.
Dove products are manufactured in more than 21 countries globally and are
being sold & marketed by the parent company Unilever Ltd. in 80+ countries
worldwide.
The brand has been in controversy due to its ads of Body lotion prompting racial
discrimination and due to its Campaign for Real Beauty.
The challenge presented to any Dove marketing strategy is one of making sure
they differentiate their product somehow. The soap market is one that is highly
competitive, with tons of other brands that Dove needs to compete against. On
top of that, the low fixed costs present in the industry means that there is easy
entry for new potential competitors. This means that Dove must do something to
stand out from these numerous competitors that they face. One way to do that is
through the product itself, but differentiation can also occur through advertising. A
memorable campaign that makes potential customers associate the Dove name
with positive feelings can be very effective.
  Marketing Strategy
Dove is known for its taking care of women beauty, but recently, it has
established a new segment for men called “ Dove men segment”. This new
segment is offering various men products such as face and body wash and
deodorants. Our focus is on the same segment, but our effort is to add a new
product into that segment, which will be Dove shaving gel. Therefore, our
consumer target is men.

1. Positioning:-

The marketing strategy for Dove is based on product differentiation. Therefore,

the new product will be positioned as the most convenient and value added
product. Our positioning statement will be “ Beauty is not always related to
femininity. It is a right of muscularity too. Women have been trusting their skins to
dove since forever. It’s time for men now”.

2. Product strategy:-

The Dove shaving gel selling process will be start, and we will continue with
same features mentioned early for its first year. There will be other shaving
gels with different features (e.g., different fragrances) that will be launched in
the later time. One of the most important product strategy that Dove uses is
building the level of its brand. Therefore, we will make sure to display its brand
and logo on the product itself and the packaging.

3. Pricing Strategy:-

Our pricing strategy will focus on attracting distributor channels and of

course gaining competitive advantage in the market. Therefore, we
decided to start with the price of AED 110 for wholesalers and AED 150
 for retailers. Once a product will be launched and of course accepted by
the consumers, the price will be increased for the distributor channels.

4. Distribution strategy :-

Before setting a distribution strategy, we focused on couple of questions

(e.g., Where do our consumers prefer to shop? What is the cost-effective
way to our product into consumption level. .Etc). by focusing on selective
strategy, we’ll start with local stores, especially, these kind of products
are consumed highly through supermarket stores. We’ll also use online
retailers for marketing the product.

5. Market communicating strategy:-

The main goal behind endorsing this product is increasing the brand
awareness. In order to do that, we will be depending on the advertising
agencies. Selecting appropriate multimedia media tools is very essential
in marketing the product. Hence, public relations department will play a
major role in reaching out our product differentiating massages to our
customers.

6. Marketing research :-

In order to develop our product, we’ll focus on brand awareness research

by surveying our target customers about their satisfaction level and
asking for their feedback the product itself and their opinions about other
competent products they prefer. this research will help us to demonstrate
our customer’s attitude toward the brand and the product. It will also help
to determine how effective our communicating strategy is.
  SWOT Analysis
1. The Strengths of Dove co.

One of the best advantages of Dove is its product design. Its combination
of Soap + Cream is what makes it both – cleansing and smoothing product.
Hence the users of Dove just love the brand. Dove has used this
successful product combination across its complete product line.

Another reason that Dove is popular is that it uses real life people instead
of using celebrities for its marketing campaigns. As a result, the connect
with the consumers is immediate and long lasting. The consumers feel that
the brand is speaking for them and hence they automatically prefer the
brand over others.

Because the brand does not use celebrities, it saves a lot of expenses
in celebrity endorsements. But it cannot be called as complete cost
savings because at the same time the brand promotes a lot via various
channels and the marketing expense is really high.

A key strength of any brand of HUL is its distribution channel. But

because Dove wants to pull off a “Premium” look, the hand picked
distribution helps it even more. Dove is found to be present at leading
retail chains and premium outlets. It may also be found at local grocery
stores. But as you move out of the city, the presence will slowly drop.

As per some statistics, Dove is the third most valued brand in the HUL
portfolio after Knorr and Lipton.
 2. The Weaknesses of Dove co.

Concerntrated towards metros – Because of its positioning and targeting,

Dove is majorly concentrated towards metro and consumption is from
Metros only. The product has a high pricing and hence penetration in non-
metros becomes difficult.

Not catering the price sensitive market – The price sensitive market
prefers Cinthol, Lifebuoy or other such alternatives which are cheaper to
Dove. Dove cannot cater to the price sensitive market. So territories
which are price sensitive are completely off limit for Dove.

3. The Oppurtunities of Dove co.

It is a great opportunity for Dove because the complete Gender market is
ripe of picking. Men are also becoming conscious of their looks and skin
and due to the education imparted by advertising over the years, they
know that taking care of skin is important for good looks. So Dove can
easily cover this market with its excellent product.

The personal care sector always has the opportunity of introducing newer
variants or newer product lines. The R&D department of HUL is renowned
and they have brought several champion products over the year. The
same can be expected of Dove and they can instill new life in the brand
cycle whenever the product portfolio becomes stagnant.

Thanks to growing income the target market is constantly growing. Where

initially people would not have thought of buying Dove which is a costly
soap, slowly, the growing income and knowledge of how good skin drives
overall well being is pushing more and more people into buying Dove. And
hence the target market is rising.
 4. The threats that Dove co. face

With Neutrogena, Olay and Nivea directly marketing Cream or Soap

separately, the market is saturated and the premium target market has
several products to purchase in mind. For example – Instead of buying
Dove soap, a customer can prefer buying the soap of their choice and then
applying Nivea cream. Even Nivea is marketing like crazy to push their
products. So saturation of the market is evident.

Because of its high price point, Dove as a brand is unable to get beyond
Grade A cities. In Grade B cities, only the upper middle class, which is few
and far in between will be able to purchase the product. So in a large
country like India, penetration and a major market share becomes a
problem. Which is not a case in high Gross income countries like US or
UK.

The strategy of Dove was copied recently by Olay which started using
real life customers and put them on the screen to show the affect of their
products. When competition brand take away the one thing driving your
own brand in the market, then your marketing strategy becomes
ineffective. So over a period of time, if customer testimonials as a mode of
marketing is abused, Dove will have to find new avenues to send its
message across.
  Marketing Mix of Dove

1. Product
Manufacturing of a Dove product includes primary ingredients like
vegetable oils, synthetic surfactants, salts of animal fats, zero levels of Ph
and 1/4th moisturising cream. Brand deals in products mostly for women
and is committed to providing a product that will enhance her beauty.
Some of its products are-

 Facial care products – Dove Deep Pure Face Wash

 Hair care products- includes Dove Oxygen Moisture Conditioner
 Moisturisers/lotions- includes Dove Go Fresh Bathing lotion, Dove
Purely Pampering Shea butter and warm Vanilla Body Lotion
 Beauty bars- includes Dove Go Fresh Bathing Bar, Original Cream
Beauty Bathing Bar
 Body wash – includes Dove Go Fresh Body Wash
 Deodorants/antiperspirants- Includes Dove Original Antiperspirant
Deodorant Stick

2. Place
Dove is an international brand with a global presence. Its network is
spread in various parts of world and manufacturing of its products takes
place in several countries like the United States, Turkey, Thailand, South
Africa, Philippines, Pakistan, Netherlands, Mexico, Ireland, Israel,
Indonesia, India, Germany, China, Canada, Brazil, Australia and
Argentina. Products are sold in nearly eighty countries with help of a fine
and efficient distribution channel. It includes manufacturers to retailers to
consumers via general stores, retail stores, convenient stores, discount
stores, supermarkets, malls and hypermarkets. It is the responsibility of
retailers to see that products are easily available to customers at
respective stores through the help of at least two thousand and five
hundred stockists.
 3.Promotion
Dove has strong brand awareness in the consumer market and it has been
possible because of branding and advertising. Marketing policies have a
huge role in the making and success of a brand. Campaigns and
advertisements increase the visibility of a brand the and create a positive
impact on minds of consumers. Advertisements for several products of
Dove are aired on different channels of television and also on radio. It has
also roped in print media to market its products through ads in
newspaper, magazines and billboards .

Advertisements put emphasis on the buyer and her reaction after usage of
this product. It is her acceptability of the given product that a viewer
relates to and creates a positive influence on her mindset. Dove adopted a
very unusual promotional policy for its products. Instead of using
a celebrity it decided to go with an ordinary woman who looks
extraordinary after using its product. Ads used the word Real beauty in
the context of confidence the thus creating a good customer base of its
own. Dove also has a media presence on the social platform
through Twitter and Facebook and has created a fan following of its own.

4.Price
Dove has been projected as a premium product in the market but the
company has a well-integrated pricing strategy for its products that
includes keeping its pricing policy reasonable and affordable but
distinctive. Compared to products of its competitors Dove products are
priced a bit higher but its qualitative products have been a great help to
the brand as it has been able to implement its pricing policy successfully.
Dove has adopted a value-added pricing policy for all its products
because customers generally relate high price with qualitative products.
  BCG Matrix in the Marketing
strategy of Dove
BCG Matrix is mainly used by companies to analyse the performance of
their multiple products and for decision making. Companies with very
large product portfolios have one major issue – Which product to put
money in and which product to take money out of? This question is
answered by the BCG Matrix.

In Skincare it has the complete portfolio of products for all customer

groups i.e. for Men, women, Baby in form of body wash, skin cleansing,
lotion, Body cream and body bar. This segment of business along with
Hair care products generates a majority of the business of the brand
and hence, therefore, is stars in the BCG matrix.

Its Deodorant product category is struggling as the company have the

very thick presence in the antiperspirant deodorants segments
competing with various National and International brand, so it is the
question mark in the BCG matrix.
  Competitive analysis in the
Marketing strategy of Dove
The parent company of the brand Dove i.e. Unilever strives to create
sustainable value through Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) in
order of being an environment-friendly company having the positive social
impact on the society through highlighting the nourishing and
environmental & natural benefits of the Dove products.

The brand believes in being Glocal, as 70% of the local management

leaders of the brand are local in order to help the brand in becoming the
truly Glo-cal brand.

Dove is popularly known for its moisturizing effect, keeping skin soft and
healthy. It competes with brands such as Nivea, Loreal, Ayur, Oly, Revlon,
Jhonson & Jhonson etc.

 Market analysis in the

Marketing strategy of Dove

In 2017 Dove has introduced the Babycare Dove which it rolled out in 19
markets and with the help of the research, Survey and its findings,
company has been doing product development and market development
to strengthen its presence in the emerging markets.

Increasing awareness about the Hygiene factors, Changing Sociocultural

thinking of the customers shaped by the social networking sites and self-
awareness among the people of the emerging nations are some of the
factors contributing to the expansion of the skincare and personal care
segment of the brand Dove.
  Customer analysis in the
Marketing strategy of Dove
Customers of Dove are those who take extra care of their body, Hair, and
physical wellbeing. These customers are affluent and always want to use
only those products which have minimal or no chemical effects on the
body/ Hair.

Although customers of the brand are in the age group of 15-50 years
majority of the customers targeted by the brand are female, young and
independent working women.

The brand has been launching several campaigns for customers to

educate them how the brand is changing the social perception of the
people.

 Recommendations
This study of Dove has been incredibly insightful both as a marketing
professional as well as a customer of Dove. I can really appreciate the
Dove's mission and efforts to change the rhetoric around beauty ideals
and gender standards.

That being said, I want to push Dove to be riskier; to be a bit more left-
field, a bit more controversial.

They can do this by:

 Enable reviews on the Facebook page. Reviews are incredible
powerful, and I'm sure they would get fantastic ratings.

 Respond to users who reach out on social media about things that
don't necessarily relate to their campaigns. I've noticed that Dove has
fantastic responses for the #Loveyourcurls campaign on social media, but
when it comes to those who write something on the timeline, they tend to
ignore it altogether.
 Dove embraces customers in this way with all of their polls, rating,
and review widgets. They could definitely take this further if they wanted
more input on product design, however I think the brand prefers to focus
on energizing strategies.
 Dove is past the listening stage. They have "listened" to their
audiences by doing extensive research on their audiences.
  Conclusion
Dove leads the market by specialization of their product, exclusive
packaging, unique brand strategy and obviously by an integrated
marketing policy. But for the high price they missed a portion of the
market.

 Dove was able to understand the feeling at the core of their

audience.They connected on an emotional and personal level with
women of many nationalities,races,beliefs,sizes and ages.
 Dove became the trendsetter,innovator and a breath of fresh air in
the beauty industry.
 Dove challenged the industry to see women as they really are
beautiful in their own unique way.
 Successful in positioning itself as a brand with a conscience.
 Ensure consistent product quality due to higher expectations.
 Unified advertising globally will save cost, making campaign
sustainable in long run.