I have stood up for the Dove "Real Beauty" campaign in the past.
I actually like the fact that a beauty brand is trying to do something different. I thought that the YouTube Evolution creative was great and I use quite often in client presentations. And while I can't personally imagine wanting to create my own Dove ad, apparently the US Dove website had thousands of films uploaded. So on the whole I felt quite positive about Dove until I tried to take part in their UK survey. According to their site they want to hear the opinions of real women because:
"Real women know best when it comes to beauty care. So good or bad we really want to hear what real women have to say."
Being a good planner I decided to give the survey a go. Being an eternal optimist. I really thought that there might be some interesting and engaging questions, something that might provide some new insights into women and beauty but instead it was just a terrible boring waste of time (at least I did it at the same time as watching What's Eating Victoria Beckham which was a lot more fun!)
It was basically a dull questionnaire that gets you to list out the beauty brands that you use (50% of the survey is just a long list of brands that you have to tick off) Then it asks you leading questions about the Dove brand. Banal questions like "Dove makes me feel more confident to reveal my underarms", "I like the Dove caring effect" and "I really trust Dove."
They are actually running TV ads driving you online to take part in this dull survey. It runs totally contrary to everything that Real Beauty is supposed to be about. It was a wasted opportunity to build on the engagement and momentum that their advertising has created,
There was a section at the end of the survey which said "Please add any comments", so I gave them my email address and said that I thought that the survey was awful and that the questions were mis-leading and I would be happy to chat and email with someone from Dove. But obviously I have not heard anything.
Oh well.
annoying that they missed a trick on this one. with innovative research techniques like the visual stuff Imagini Holdings are doing out there they could have done something more interesting. http://imagini.net/friends/
smacks of marketing size 12s stomping in. surely they would have enough insight from the vast commentary they get on campaignforrealbeauty.com.
disclosure: my employer ogilvy hold much of dove's advertising work though i am not involved in it.
Posted by: giles | Thursday, 08 February 2007 at 01:13 AM
That's a real shame if they're not keeping with the spirit of the rest of the campaign. Incidentally, I too loved the Evolution film but did you see the You Tube rip off of it?(http://neilperkin.typepad.com/only_dead_fish/2006/12/slob_evolution.html) It's very funny.
Posted by: neilperkin | Thursday, 08 February 2007 at 04:08 PM
Ah, the old survey-masquerading-as-PR-fodder trick... horrible.
Posted by: Jason Lonsdale | Tuesday, 13 February 2007 at 07:37 PM
this is a good example of the campaign where ad agency has created the catchy platform, none at Dove believes in. just another marketing trick to attract people. I guess if you really want to make the cultural change you need to believe in it as a company. The survey you are reffering to is a just an example people at Dove didn't see the potential to influence the cultural perpcetion of beauty and just proved they are just an another ordianry company
Posted by: Daria Radota Rasmussen | Friday, 16 February 2007 at 01:36 PM
Great post!
It's a shame for what Dove has achieved with this down to earth campaign. With all the researched iterations on their communication idea (check WARC for their case study), and now this...
Posted by: Stefan Stroe | Monday, 26 February 2007 at 10:15 PM
Check out these Dove ads (if you don't know'em already):
http://adme.ru/creativity/2007/02/21/15395/
Posted by: Stefan Stroe | Tuesday, 27 February 2007 at 01:36 PM
Hi, gutted to read about this. I worked on this before I went off to have the bubba and wondered if they did anything with it. It was a great idea, sounds like they missed a trick
Posted by: freya | Tuesday, 01 May 2007 at 03:07 AM
Have you tried the Marketing Society survey sent out as a recruiting mechansim for their annual conference. There I was thinking I wasn't doing too badly knowing what's going on in the world........
Posted by: Emma Howarth | Monday, 06 August 2007 at 10:50 AM
it's embarrassing when ppl use our online survey software and then create aweful surveys. would like to mention a few firms on here but better not.
by the way, here's a link: http://www.surveypark.co.uk/uc/main/ef43/?code=3ef500d5158a8861
Posted by: Diana | Wednesday, 03 October 2007 at 11:00 AM
i have taken the survey. thanks for sharing this with us.
Posted by: take surveys online | Saturday, 04 April 2009 at 01:51 AM