2021 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Challenges & Objectives

With the “Real Beauty” brand platform, Dove redefined notions of beauty to be more inclusive and less rooted in conventional aesthetics. During the early days of the global COVID-19 pandemic Dove saw an opportunity to redefine beauty once again by creating a campaign to announce their commitment of over $7.5 million to support frontline workers risking their lives around the world.
The objective was to reinforce brand affinity and relevance by creating awareness of Dove’s commitment to frontline workers.

Insight & Strategy

The brand’s insight was that, in times of crisis, beauty lies in what we do, not how we look.
The first weeks of the pandemic were a dark and anxious time. The idea started taking form as stories began to emerge of beautiful acts of compassion big and small happening all around the world. Many of these stories were coming from our heroic frontline workers putting their lives at risk to keep the rest of us healthy. Their acts of heroism in the face of illness and even death became our inspiration.
So the idea was to show the beauty in these acts of courage.

Execution

As the images of exhausted healthcare heroes emerged, the team reached out to them directly and obtained their permission to feature these brave selfies in our campaign film. Alongside celebrating them, the brand’s call to action was directed at thanking these people personally.
Dove set out to ensure its message of gratitude was seen by the people who inspired it. Working with various hospitals, it collected data on key workers’ shift patterns and commute times, revealing that they were working astonishing 16-18 hour shifts. Based on this data, the brand bought media sites adjacent to the most overwhelmed hospitals in major cities, programming them to broadcast its ads at the exact time healthcare workers started or ended their shifts, letting them see our gratitude. These hyper targeted out of home placements were purchased across four different countries and each country featured local frontline health care workers.

Results

Following the campaign’s success in Canada, it was adapted and ran around the world in 14 additional markets. On social media, the campaign garnered unprecedented engagement rates in all markets. In Canada alone, it tripled category engagement benchmarks on Facebook (+220%) and Twitter (+200%). The brand had a 99% positive sentiment on social media and in the first 24 hours of launching, its hashtag was used 360,000 times.
The campaign generated 2 billion global earned impressions and 275 news reports including coverage on CBS This Morning, NBC, Glamour, CNN and Today. An Omnibus study in Canada showed significant uplift on equity with a +15pt Brand Affinity increase and a +8pt increase in main equity attribution.
In the end, the campaign not only honoured the beautiful sacrifices made by frontline workers, it re-established Dove’s place in today’s cultural zeitgeist.

Credits

Alessandro Manfredi: Global Dove EVP, Unilever
Sophie van Ettinger: Global Brand Vice President - Dove Masterbrand, Unilever
Divya Singh: Dove Canada Marketing Manager, Unilever
Laura Douglas: Dove Canada Brand Manager, Unilever

Brian Murray: Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy, Toronto
Christian Horsfall: Group Creative Director, Ogilvy, Toronto
Pam Danowski: Associate Creative Director, Ogilvy, Toronto
Tom Kenny: Chief Strategy Officer, Ogilvy, Toronto
Aviva Groll: Worldwide Managing Director, Ogilvy, Toronto
Beth Blatch: Account Director, Ogilvy, Toronto
Rebecca Tummers: Account Coordinator, Ogilvy, Toronto
Marie-Pierre Toure: Agency Producer, Ogilvy, Toronto
Eric Thompson: Agency Producer/Online Editor, Ogilvy, Toronto
David Scanlon: Senior Print Producer, Ogilvy, Toronto

Nadja Bellan-White: Worldwide Managing Partner, Ogilvy, London
Dan Fisher: Global Executive Creative Director Unilever, Ogilvy, London
Juliana Paracencio: Creative Director, Ogilvy, London
Sam Pierce: Global Managing Partner (Dove), Ogilvy, London
Georgie Howard: Global Business Director, Ogilvy, London
Mike Kerry: Global Creative Delivery Lead (Unilever), Ogilvy, London
Pia Smith-Boquien: Programme Director (Dove), Ogilvy, London
Sarah Thomson: Head of Art Production (Unilever), Ogilvy, London
Chloe Jahanshahi: Art Producer, Ogilvy, London
Jonathon Nixon: Art Producer, Ogilvy, London
Matthew Jones: Head of Integrated Production (Unilever), Ogilvy, London
Kaitlin Roach: Client Partner, PR, Ogilvy, London

Nicholas Anglin: Senior Art Director, Uniworld Group
Tischen Franklin: Associate Creative Director, Design, Uniworld Group
Iraima Yepez: Senior Copy-Writer, Uniworld Group

Ben Kay: Chief Strategy Officer, WPP, London

Michelle Morgan: Associate Director, Mindshare, US
Dana Paolucci: Senior Account Supervisor, Edelman, US
Hetal Patel: Senior Client Partner, Razorfish, US
Emily Fine: Program Management Director, Bustle, US
Chris Murphy, Editor, Outsider, Canada