Donna's Promo Talk

Dove Introduces New Reality Diaries Online Series

I chose Dove and their Campaign for Real Beauty as my first two posts when I started this blog last year so I thought I'd to start off 2008 with the same brand. These first posts focused on a couple of promotions Dove was running at the time in which they were seeking real women to star in some of their product ads. They were both consumer-generated contests; one was the Dove Energy Glow Contest and the other was for Dove Cream Oil Body

After writing about these two promotions I became very interested in learning more about Dove and their Campaign for Real Beauty and what Unilever, the parent company, was trying to achieve. I learned that Dove first launched the Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004, a global effort to widen today's stereotypical view of beauty. But it wasn't till January of 2006 that a heart-tugging 45-second ad, created by Ogilvy & Mather, which aired during Super Bowl XL really started to get the campaign some attention.

Soon after I got my blog started I was then invited to be a guest blogger at PMA's Annual Conference which was held in March in Chicago. There I got to hear Maureen Shirreff, Creative Director for O&M, give a great overview of the history of Dove's advertising and marketing campaigns as well as the strategy behind the Campaign for Real Beauty. You can read more about Maureen in this post that I ended up writing later in the year.   

Then as the year moved on I started writing a few posts about the growing popularity of viral video marketing and embedded some of the popular videos right into this blog. One post included Dove's Evolution, a one-minute video that shows how unrealistic body images are portrayed in media and entertainment. Evolution quickly became the most viewed video on the Internet.

Then on October 1st Dove introduced Onslaught, their second viral video which I also wrote a post about and embedded this video as well. Onslaught, also one-minute long, details all the beauty and media imaging young girls are inundated with within a 24-hour period.

So as a blogger, a marketer, and a mother of two teenage daughters, I was really connecting with Dove and this campaign. I found myself wanting to make my readers aware of what Dove was doing in order to raise awareness not only from a marketing perspective but also to help spread the positive messaging that the campaign has been communicating...to try and alter society's perceptions of real beauty.

As part of the Campaign for Real Beauty Dove I also learned about the Dove Self-Esteem Fund (DSEF) which was established to raise the self-esteem of girls and young women in order to make them feel more beautiful and confident every day. The Fund consists of a network of local country initiatives linked in strategy and direction by a global steering group. In each country, the DSEF supports a specific charitable organization that can help spread the message and to educate and inspire girls.

DSEF is committed to reaching 5 million young women by the end of 2010 and is doing so by inviting people to play a role in supporting and promoting this wider definition of beauty. To date their website says they've reach 1,489,056 lives. Too many girls develop low self-esteem from hang-ups about looks. Consequently, many fail to reach their full potential later in life. To make change possible, the DSEF focuses its efforts to foster positive image-related self-esteem in two areas of activity:

• The Fund develops and distributes resources that enable and empower women and girls to embrace a broad definition of beauty
• The Fund provides needed resources to organizations that foster a broader definition of beauty

Dove recognizes that alone they can't make changes in the way beauty is defined so their mission is to provide tools and support to individuals, groups and organizations and to personally invite people to get involved. Since I've written about Dove's campaign several times on this blog, I was one of those who was invited by Andrea from Rocket XL, a small marketing agency in Los Angeles that has also been working with Dove. Through their outreach campaigns Rocket XL encourages bloggers like me to spread the word about specific campaigns and to express our opinions with our readers. Depending on the campaign they also give bloggers the opportunity to view shows before they air or to sample products for free.

For Dove's Real Beauty Campaign, Rocket XL has been providing background on the campaign as well as introducing us to the new Dove Reality Diaries online series which I would like to now introduce you to. The Reality Diaries Program is a 6-week program that revolves around the lives of four real girls who share their personal self-esteem stories online. They record their journey online through the use of blogs and videos, allowing girls across the country to go behind-the-scenes on their real lives and understand the factors that impact their self-esteem. 

Each girl deals with a different self-esteem issue and the Diaries will reflect how the media influences their self-esteem. Jessica Weiner is the self-esteem expert continuously providing guidance and advice online to all four girls through video, live chats, talk workshops and recommended Dove Self-Esteem tools.

So, check all this out and feel free to get involved and pass the word. I'm going to be following the Reality Diaries and will be reporting back on this campaign throughout 2008. I'd love to get your opinions on what you think about this campaign both from a marketing perspective and a personal one as well. So please join in the conversation.

Go Wild For Knitting with Wild Wooly

Last night I attended the local Addy Awards put on by the RAF (Rochester Advertising Federation), one of the many clubs affiliated with the AAF. I hadn't been to the annual awards ceremony in a couple of years and thought it was time to reconnect with some of the people in the local ad community, especially since I was previously on the RAF board for 8 years as well as a past president. I also just wanted to have some fun.

Well I have to share with you the entry that won the Best of Show... Go Wild For Knitting which includes the funny blogged adventures of the Wild Woolies. Who would of thought that a ball of yarn would win over big brands such as Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, Wegmans, Constellation Brands and Xerox!

Well, it did and it just goes to show how social media combined with great creative can build a brand and connect with an audience very quickly. The campaign allows you to follow the Wild Woolies as they make their way across the country and invites you to locate them, pass them on, add your comments and share what you've done with your ball of yarn. All from a little shop in Rochester, NY called Wild Wools owned by Lucinda Snyder.

One of this year's Addy judges, Jane Murray, Associate Creative Director at Ogilvy & Mather in Toronto said about the entry "The fact the campaign was so quickly embraced, adopted, loved and propagated by the people it was intended for, told us that Wild Wooly was our hands-down winner".

I recently read an article on the Click Z Network By Rebecca Lieb "Why is a Website Like a Women", which she summarizes the book "Marketing in the In-Between: A Post-Modern Turn on Madison Avenue" by Len Ellis, who was Wunderman's EVP of Global Strategy. Lieb goes on to quote "Why is a Web site like a woman? Both want you to talk to them. This is a strong listening metaphor and a powerful argument as to why businesses would do better to invest in inbound, rather than outbound, marketing...such as why big agencies are so slowly and inadequately rising to meet interactive challenges."

I salute the women creative team that created the Wild Woolies campaign and who definitely rose above the interactive creative challenge, while both not being from any of the "big agencies". Congratulations to Anne Esse, designer and Kate Sonnick, copywriter. In today's Rochester Democrat & Chronicle Anne modestly gives Kate credit for the concept. While I personally haven't have the opportunity yet to work with Anne, I have worked with Kate and can say she is one of the most creative people in the business. 

I'm really anxious to find out what Phase 2 of the Wild Woolies will be. Can you ladies give us a hint?