How Dove found beauty in the time of COVID-19

Source: Account Planning Group (UK), Entrant, 2021

Downloaded from WARC

Dove, a personal care brand, made a $7.5 million global commitment and launched a worldwide
campaign to support frontline healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Women's beauty confidence was at an all-time low as they faced daily pressures with their
appearance and the beauty industry had become toxic.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the frontline healthcare workers, revealed that real beauty is
defined by duty and courage.
Dove launched the campaigned in 15 countries, on major TV networks, and social media
platforms and OOH sites outside hospitals were turned into channels of personal gratitude to
healthcare workers.
The campaign generated more than 2 billion global impressions, increases in social media
engagement rates, increases in view-through rates, 99% positive sentiment in social media and a
13pp increase in brand power.

Campaign details
Brand: Dove
Agency: Ogilvy

Executive Summary
As an iconic, purpose-lead brand Dove have always sought to make real beauty a source of confidence not
anxiety, a POV mimicked by brands. To move the beauty confidence narrative on, we needed to give it new
meaning, redefining our cultural enemy.

When the global pandemic hit, Dove committed $7.5m globally to support frontline healthcare-workers. We
suddenly had to raise awareness of this whilst staying true to our beauty purpose.
With politicians trying to instil confidence, we observed a more valuable attribute in the healthcare-workers who
risking their lives everyday: courage. The new perspective afforded by the pandemic inspired our shift from
confidence to courage.

An act of courage unlocked Dove's take on beauty in the pandemic: frontline ICU-staff posting pictures of their
exhausted, bruised faces on social media as a wake-up call to take the pandemic seriously. These were faces of
courage, but in them we saw beauty.

Our idea was to honour healthcare-workers by featuring these strikingly beautiful portraits as a thank you for
their selfless actions, drawing attention to the important message they were sending while showing the world
that Courage is Beautiful.

The campaign tapped the cultural zeitgeist offering an outlet for gratitude to healthcare- heroes. It generated
over 2bn impressions, garnered 99% positive sentiment, featuring in major media outlets earning 1.3bn
impressions, boosting spontaneous awareness +7%, meaningfulness +10pp and affinity +7%. US cross-
category value sales grew +10pp, giving an ROI of 1:12.

And when this pandemic ends, courage will live on.

Beauty on a mission
Over the past 15 years, Dove has established itself as one of the world's most iconic, purpose- led brands,
daring to envision a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety for women. At a time when the
beauty industry was shaming millions, Dove's legendary Campaign for Real Beauty challenged the beauty ideal
to be more realistic, advocating a beauty that embraced all shapes, sizes and skin-tones. It was a radical POV
that redefined the beauty aesthetic and cultural landscape.
Evolving the beauty narrative
To stay relevant to women, we've constantly advanced Dove's cultural narrative around beauty confidence by
defining and re-defining the enemy. We've challenged beauty stereotypes perpetuated by the beauty industry;
opposed advertising's digital manipulation of images; and contested social-media's micro-targeting of data
exploiting women's insecurities. We've sought to address an enemy closer to home, women's inner critic, and
most recently redressed the representation of women in stock-image libraries.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

In recent years, inspired by Dove's success, many brands have encroached on Dove's purpose-driven space of
real beauty, a mimicry that's testament to the positive cultural shift Dove pioneered. This, coupled with the
explosion of reality shows, influencers and UGC, suddenly saw 'real women' everywhere and real beauty,
though important, was mainstream, no longer at the vanguard of the beauty conversation.

For Dove's next purpose-driven campaign we knew we needed to move the beauty confidence narrative on,
giving it new meaning.

This should have been straight-forward. In 2020 women were still facing daily constraint, coercion and obligation
in relation to appearance and the beauty industry had become toxic. Women's beauty confidence was at an all-
time low globally1, exacerbated by the 24/7 pressures of social media. Between the rise of photo-editing apps,
un-regulated vloggers, virtual-influencers and extreme social- media challenges, we had enemies aplenty.

Our cultural insights and territories were ready to go.

Enter an enemy like no other
Then came something none of us saw, an enemy more vicious than anything in beauty: COVID-19.

The global pandemic hit fast and took over our lives with catastrophic consequences, spreading across
countries, crippling hospitals, taking lives. We were suddenly at war with an invisible virus, with hospitals the
battleground and healthcare-workers the frontline. Governments were powerless with lock-down the only option.
Life as we knew it disappeared, and with it, the strategic thinking we'd been doing on Dove.

Beauty steps into action

As Zoom calls became the new normal, beauty brands capitalised on our innermost lockdown fears, replacing
coveted beauty routines with athome alternatives. However, Dove reacted differently. With soap on the frontline
in the fight against the pandemic, as one of the world's most purposeful brands, Dove felt an obligation to help.
Instead of talking about purpose, they made action their duty.

Dove immediately made a $7.5m global commitment to support healthcare workers, donating
personal care products, soap, sanitizer, bleach and food, as well as providing PPE, ventilators and
medicines to frontline healthcare staff, hospitals, government and NGO initiatives globally.

It fell to us to announce this commitment in a purposeful way, staying true to our platform of real beauty. Beauty
and a pandemic should be uncomfortable bedfellows but Dove's commitment proved they could work together.
However, talking about women's beauty confidence in a pandemic would be inappropriate and tone-deaf, not
only because it risked trivialising the pandemic, but it wouldn't do justice to the incredible healthcare-workers this
donation was for.

We needed to pivot away from our heartland of Real Beauty as Confidence. But towards what? Lockdown had
cut us off from the real-world with news channels our only access to it, exposing us to a brutal, raw perspective
of what life had become: a rising global death toll, makeshift mortuaries, overwhelmed hospitals, cities empty to
all but ambulances. All we could do was stay at home, while healthcare-workers worked around the clock saving
the lives of strangers.

While politicians were trying to instil confidence they had things under control, healthcareworkers were anything
but. They weren't confident their commute was safe, or their inadequate PPE would protect them from COVID-19
patients, or their patients would survive. They didn't need confidence. They needed a much more
valuable attribute: courage.

Courage to face a virus that could kill them everyday, courage to risk their lives on public transport before risking
their lives again in ICU with inadequate PPE, courage to work exhausting shifts in heavy masks and then go
back and do it day-after-day. Confidence wouldn't get them or us through this pandemic, but their courage just
might. What they were doing was extraordinary.

This gave is an idea.

If real beauty in the pandemic wasn't about confidence, perhaps it was about courage.

An act of courage unlocks beauty

In searching for a way to bring this idea of courage to life through the lens of real beauty, it is perhaps
unsurprising that an act of courage from healthcare workers unlocked our take on beauty. The gravity of COVID-
19 should've been clear, but many people were flouting the rules, refusing to believe the pandemic was real.
Every person doing this, was condemning people to ICU. As the situation worsened frontline-workers made it
their duty to act. They started posting pictures of their exhausted faces on social media, not for pity, but as a
wake-up call to the rest of us to take this seriously.
Social posts from healthcare-workers

These remarkable photos brought the pandemic home in a way government messaging couldn't. We were
confronted with the faces of ICU staff, raw with exhaustion, marked, bruised and bleeding from the heavy,
painful protective masks being worn during 18-hour shifts. In their eyes was resilience, pleading for the world to
listen. These striking images were raw but captivating. They were faces of courage, and in their strength we
saw beauty.

This was the breakthrough we needed. This is what beauty looked like in the time of COVID-19, not
defined by size, colour or looks, or confidence but by duty and courage: everyday heroes fighting
around the clock, day after day to save lives, taking courage to post their pictures on social media to
protect us further.

The perspective afforded by the pandemic gave us permission to move the narrative on from confidence to
courage and had unlocked Dove's take on beauty. One that broke stereotypical beauty ideals, pushing the
boundaries of real to raw. Not a clean, smiling, posed beauty, but the qualities of selflessness, compassion and
bravery captured in personal moments of honesty, preserved in time by frontline workers. This beauty couldn't
be cast, shot, retouched or edited, it was raw, unadulterated courage and it was beautiful.

The idea
From these photos came our simple idea. We would honour healthcare-workers by featuring their strikingly
beautiful portraits as a way to thank them directly for their selfless actions, drawing attention to the serious
message they were trying to send, while showing the world that their Courage is Beautiful. As their posts
emerged on social media, we reached out to them directly, obtaining their permission to be featured.

Doing our duty

As the pioneers of brand purpose Dove had taken their commitment further, making it their duty to help. The
healthcare workers had made it their duty to protect us further. We needed to ensure our communications
reinforced this dutiful spirit. Whilst Dove's donation was significant it needed to be secondary to our message of
gratitude to healthcare-workers. If we got it right we could make a tangible difference to the people who mattered
most, their morale and ultimately their courage to fight-on.

The work
6 days after the idea was conceived our campaign launched on major TV networks, YouTube, Twitter,
Facebook and Instagram with 48s, 30s, 15s and 6s films for social, amplified through influencer outreach.
People around the world joined in sending messages of thanks and admiring the beauty of courage in a time of
a crisis.

6s film assets for social

Film assets for TV and social, 48s, 30s, 15s

We wanted healthcare-workers to receive our thanks directly but 16-18 hour shifts meant traditional media
wouldn't be seen by them. We could only reach them on their way in and out of hospital between shifts.

We turned OOH sites outside hospitals into a channel of personal gratitude. [Fig.1] By collecting data on key
workers' shift patterns and commute times we found change-overs were 6-8am and 6-8pm, so we programmed
our ads to be seen between shifts. [Fig.2]

As the campaign reached more healthcare- workers, many shared their own experiences, further amplifying the
campaign. [Fig.3]
Fig.1 Poster sites and bus shelters outside hospitals in NYC

Fig.2 Media placements outside hospitals in NYC

Fig.3 Social posts from healthcare workers

Dove also made a donation in the name of each featured worker to their specific hospital.

As news of Dove's commitment spread, healthcare-workers reached out to Dove for supplies which were
supplied directly or in the US through the DirectRelief partnership.

As the pandemic spread, frontline-workers in other countries were coming under the same pressure and similar
images were emerging. We launched the campaign in15 countries from Canada to Uruguay, thanking them all
and supporting each market with donations.
Social posts requesting products from Dove

Success is beautiful

Courage is Beautiful was a resounding success. The campaign generated over 2 billion global impressions2 as
people globally joined Dove to show gratitude and celebrate local heroes.

Campaign engagement rates were unprecedented for Dove, + 349% on Facebook, +1,599% on Twitter and
+300% on Instagrarm2. View-Through-Rates were significantly higher than benchmarks: 6x Facebook, 4x
Instagram and 3x Twitter3. The 30s film on Twitter set a Dove record with engagement rates +2601 % vs Dove
benchmark and +1250% vs Unilever benchmarks5.

We had 99% positive sentiment in social media, avoiding fears of virtue-signalling. The only negative comments
suggesting 'fake news'.

We generated collective gratitude for our heroes with thousands globally joining Dove in thanking frontline-
workers, many commending Dove's initiative. Healthcare-workers themselves endorsed Dove's efforts,
acknowledging the role Dove products had played during the pandemic in caring for their skin. [Fig.4]
Fig 4. Example posts of messages of thanks for the

The frontline workers who were the face of our campaign felt proud and empowered to be part of a message of
hope and strength that reached millions around the world. [Fig.5]

Fig. 5 Featured workers emails in response to involvement

The campaign featured on major US news outlets including CBS, CNN and NBC Today, creating an additional
1.3bn earned impressions4, boosting Dove's spontaneous awareness by +7% in US, +8% in Brazil and +5% in
UK5, where the campaign didn't run, but was the UK's Top5 most liked COVID-19 ad6.

The campaign drove key Dove brand equity measures in the US of Meaningfulness +10%, Affinity +7% (this
was +15% in Canada7), 'inspired women to feel more positive about the way they look' +5%, and even drove
sustainable living measures +3%8.

Dove was one of the only brands associated with responding to the pandemic helping to establish a clear lead
ahead of the BPC category in metal availability globally. [Fig.6]
Fig 6. Kantar. Prompted Awareness of brands acting on COVID-19 Jun 2020 US

The campaign was a huge success tapping into the zeitgeist and applauded by the healthcare heroes it was
intended for. But was it a success for Dove's business?

Whilst not an objective it's worth understanding to show brand duty drives business. In the US, Dove's key
market, Dove saw a massive 13pp increase in brand power9 contributing to 3.5% increase in penetration, +10pp
increase in underlying sales growth and +10pp increase in cross-category value sales growth. We calculate the
campaign achieved a conservative ROI of 1:1210.

Hindsight is beautiful
A strategic leap can from anywhere even a pandemic, allowing us to look afresh at the world of beauty. Our
world faces significant challenges. Brand Duty not brand purpose should be the requirement of every brand, and
courage not confidence the duty of every citizen. We hope this pandemic will soon be over but these lessons will
live on.

Footnotes
1. Dove Global Beauty Confidence Report 2016
2. Edelman Research
3. Source: Mindshare, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Engagement Rates vs Dove Benchmarks
4. Source: Mindshare, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Engagement Rates vs Dove Benchmarks
5. Source: Mindshare, Twitter vs Dove and Unilever benchmarks.
6. Edelman Reporting
7. Source: Kantar Quarterly Analysis, Spontaneous Awareness, Q2 2020 vs Q1 2020, US, UK, Brazil
8. Source: Unruly survey June 2020
9. Source: Kantar Canada
10. Source: Kantar US Q3 2020 Brand Equity Analysis. Equity metrics.
11. Source: Kantar US Q3 Dove Brand Equity Report. MDS Overtime. Q3 2019 - Q3 2020
12. For ROI we have based the calculation on sales/ revenue lift and assumed it was driven equally by all 2020
campaigns in the US market - of which there were 5. This is considered satisfactorily prudent, as CIB had
the highest brand power score versus all the other campaigns
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