Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

Dove company
Current situation analysis
Dove is one of the worlds most recognizable and successful brands in the sector of
personal hygiene. It was founded in 1957 and is currently under Unilevers control since they
acquired it. Perhaps their best known product is the wide varieties of soap that they sell. Dove
recently has seen attention for its new marketing campaign which tries to use realistic images of
women in their ads. This has many potential advantages, as Dove tries to strive for a larger
market share, ads that portray images of women that more can recognize themselves in mean that
the ads can appeal to a broader range of customers.
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.
Doves effort at differentiation has come through its Real Beauty campaign in recent
years. Real Beauty is a response to the trend in hygiene, beauty, and fashion advertisements in
which fashion models are used to market their products. These types of advertisements are highly
pervasive, but are not without their critics. The most common complaint is that advertisements
featuring these types of women have created an unrealistic standard for beauty, especially
amongst younger and more impressionable girls. Dove has attempted to counter this by using
more typical looking women than other companies. This ad campaign is focused on what they
have termed real beauty, meaning a standard that more women can see as attainable for
themselves. In conjunction with the advertising campaign, Dove committed itself to various
efforts to support women and their self esteem (Dove Support).

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

This advertising campaign has been very successful, even though it hardly mentions
anything about any Dove products. Dove itself calls attention to their own ad campaign as often
as possible; they have come to market their own marketing campaign as much as any of their
products. This is because they know there is a great deal of goodwill bound to come to them due
to their unique campaign. Real Beauty is not just an alternative to any trend in advertising, but a
trend that has many worried about what the previous ads are saying about women. Dove can
present themselves as an alternative to a type of advertising that some see as immoral; passions
run high against their alternatives so passions can run high for Dove and their Real Beauty
campaign.
The unique nature of the ad campaign has meant that Dove gets increased media
exposure. This is because there is a somewhat political, albeit neutral, statement embedded in the
ad campaign. By doing this, they have avoided any sort of controversy while also drawing
attention to themselves. Publicity for a media campaign means that they get essentially free
advertising for their message, making it extremely effective at getting their message out. On top
of that, the ad campaign is designed to appeal to as many women as possible. The proportion of
women who find themselves comparable to the models in the Real Beauty campaign is certainly
higher than those who see themselves in the models of traditional campaigns. This makes this
new campaign both universally appealing and goes through media that Dove does not have to
pay to transmit through.
Dove has launched one of the worlds most creative and successful ad campaigns. Due to
the nature of its statement, it receives free publicity as the ad campaign itself becomes a news
story deemed worth covering. However, the real brilliance of the campaign is in the way it can be
seen as a celebration of its own target market. The ads use real women and attempt to celebrate
the beauty of these women. Dove realizes that the kind of women they are putting in the
advertisements and the women who could buy their soap are similar and they themselves
recognize the very similarities. They have come to be selling women self esteem as opposed to
the product itself (Lee). By celebrating the women in their ads, Dove makes the women seeing
the ad feel better about themselves and by extension, the Dove brand itself.

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

In conclusion, Dove has launched one of the best current ad campaigns and should
continue using a similar approach for the foreseeable future. The advertisement is brilliant in its
effectiveness, as the campaign both sends a message that works to bring in consumers and a
message that results in the campaign being talked about. This second feature makes the campaign
especially successful. Dove has been focuses largely on the female demographic, but it is now in
the infancy of a new male centric campaign. They should be careful to separate the two brands to
not risk the success they have already have. That said, the company that has come up with such a
unique and well thought out campaign should be trusted to do so again in their new target
market.
SWOT analysis
The Strengths of Dove company
Dove company had many strengths when it first started in 1957, these
strengths then developed throughout the years to allow Dove to establish
itself as the worlds top brand in cleansing products today (Kasi, 2011).
The main and the most obvious strength of Dove company is its
unconventional marketing strategy. Which makes the existing clients reliaze
that real beauty lies within them, that is enhanced by Dove products
(Hussain, 2010). This beauty concept is the main aim of Doves marketing
strategy.
Another remarkable strengh that Dove company posses is its effective
advertising strategy. Along the years Dove has launched many campaigns to
relate directly with their customers. These campaigns included the love
your beauty campaign, which worked well with Doves new brand extention
of new: body care and facial moisturizers products (Williams, 2005). Another
campiagn which relate to the social side is the Doves self estem fund was
launched in January (Williams, 2005). This fund provides support for
organizations that aim to broaden the definition of beauty, for example: they
recently launched a body image website called relame.ca in partnership with

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

the National Eating Disorder information centre (Williams, 2005). These

campiagns were a success to the company, as they doubled the sales of
almost every product in Dove. The campaigns also strenghed the brands
recognition. The marketing managers of Dove have conducted a study to see
if people would recognize the Doves blue bird logo, and the results were
remarkable as 90% of people recognized it (Williams, 2005). The reason of
this success is as experts claim Dove marketing managers have done which
is they opened their eyes to what customers is, rather than what the
customer wishes.
In specific, Dove soap products have many strenghs that allows it to
differentiate itself from competitores, regardless of how successful Doves
marketing strategy is. Firstly, the products of Dove are the only cleansing
products that contains moisturizing cream in their soap products.
Secondly, Doves soap products has zero PH levels in them. PH is the
abbrevuation for potential hydrogen (Monitoring your Body's PH levels,
2010). The higher the PH level, the more rich in oxygen the human blood is
(Monitoring your Body's PH levels, 2010). The lower the PH level, the more
oxygen deprived the human blood is (Monitoring your Body's PH levels,
2010). The human blood usually stays in a very narrow range of PH around
(7.35 7.45), below or above this range causes diseases to humans
(Monitoring your Body's PH levels, 2010). Dove company is aware of these
facts, therefore they minimized the PH level to zero in their soap products as
I mentioned earlier. Finally, Dove company is also proud of having gentle
soap products, that is made of natural ingredients, and which the company
promises not to leave any residue on the skin on its marketing campaigns.
These strenghs that Dove company posses along with its charactristics of
countinually eveolving their campaigns and their strong emotional touch are
the reasons behind Doves major success worldwide.
The Weaknesses of Dove company

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

The main weakness of Dove company is its contradictory advertising. Doves

marketing campaigns are used to promote real beauty. However, Dove
company made an adverstment to promote its Axe deodorant product to
young girls, which made girls sexier as the company claims. This
advertisment is clearly contradictory to Doves real beautycampaign, which
promotes a healthy self image for all women. The company have defended
itself by claiming that the advertisment is meant to show women the need
of always feeling beautiful which has been expressed by a wide way in the
todays stereotyped advertisement, and that it is meant to inspire women to
take care of themselves. (Hussain, 2010).The company added to their
defense that the advertisement was meant to show the need to have real
beauty, rather than encourage girls to use products. (Hussain, 2010).For
that reason Dove have developed a self esteem campaign to educate and
inspire women of real beauty.
Doves other weaknesses relating to their soap products include the high
price of soap products in the Indian market. Which coasts 32 rubees for 75
grams of soap, and 48 for the medium special size. These prices are
relatively high for an under developed country as India, as many indian
customers claims.
Another weakness of Dove is its targeting segment, which include women
only. This targeting segmentation might affect the company negatively in the
future, by wasteing its oppurtunity to target the men segment to increase
their profit.
The Oppurtunities of Dove company
As the development of Dove company increases each year. It has generated
many oppurtunities for itself to increase its profit. Firstly, Dove has the
golden oppurtunity to target many new segments other than women, as it is
already experienced in cleansing products, by expanding its production line

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

in new segments such as: the male market by producing shaving creams, or
body lotions for the babies industry. They can even enter the makeup
market, to target younger women.
Secondly, Dove can also unifie its advertising campaigns throughout the
globe, as they have already provin success by doubling the sales of almost
each product in some regions as I mentioned earlier.
The threats that Dove company face
As the growth of Dove company increase each year, so does the threats that
the company faces. The most dangerous threat that Dove faces is the
attitude of the public. Dove once posted a photo of an average women on
their website, with a poll that asked Fat of Fabuluos?. After considering the
responses of customers, the term Fat won the majority of responses. Which
resulted in the removale of the photo from the website.
A less dangerous threat to Dove is the fact that the brand is only popular in
modern countries which has higher income. Additionlly, some customers
have complained that the prices of soap products are high in under
developed countries like India. Thereofre, Dove must develop a strategy to
lower the prices of its products to allow more sales in both modern and less
developed countries, for both middle and upper class group of people.

Objectives
Doves overall objectives have always portrayed in satisfying its customers
needs and increasing the brand awareness and level.
Besides those objective, we have set some extra achievable objectives that
are:
First year objectives:

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

Develop a new product:

Add a new product (Dove shaving gel) in the existing segment (Dove
men care).
Increase the sales volume:
During the initial year, we are aiming that our sales volume will reach
to AED200,000.

Second year objectives:

Develop the existing product (Dove shaving gel).

Expanding the existing product into several categories by introducing
various fragrances.
Increase the sales volume to AED 500,000.

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.
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. Its time for men now.
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

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

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.

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.
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, well start with local stores, especially, these kind of products are
consumed highly through supermarket stores. Well also use online retailers
for marketing the product.
Marketing 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.
Marketing research

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

In order to develop our product, well 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
customers attitude toward the brand and the product. It will also help to
determine how effective our communicating strategy is.
Action plan:
The action plan for the coming summer is mainly focused on mens segment,
with new production of Dove shaving gel. The action of this plan is expected
to increase the overall profits of Dove company, because the number of
segments and customers is also growing. The action plan must match with
Dove objectives, which is to satisfy all the needs for our product users. For
further details of the action plan, each action will be described with fair
information according to its month.
June: establish campaigns to promote the new launch of Dove collections.
There are two events that the new collection will be present in, to educate
customers. First event, in Jumairah Beach Residents, Dubai, at 22nd of June,
2012. In this day, there will be a higher number of people gathering in JBR
because of a water game event, therefore, many procures will be given to
people who we wish to be our loyal customers. Second event is going to be
in Joelles show that is accessible on MBC channel. Joelle is an makeup artist
and makeovers for her contesters. So, our plan to launch the mens jell to
people in Amro Saloon that Joelle always go there to make makeovers. By
this way, the product will be presented indirectly, but affordably.
July: by the beginning of July, mens jell will be in all Dove stores. Our plan is
to reach a total value up to AED200,000 for the first year of production.
However, the jell will be offered on slow basis to study customers feedback

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

through surveys, complains, and asking their opinion directly when they are
shopping in Doves store.
August: collect all the feedbacks, opinions, and complains to develop several
features to improve the presence of our product. After it is improved, the
price will be higher and it is expected that people in this month will more
noticeable about the product, which leads to receive higher value and profit
for our company. From September till the end of the year, Dove workers will
give the most of service and welcoming strategies for our existing customers
to become loyal and tell to other people about Dove mens segment
specifically to achieve our goal of AED200,000.
Budget:
The goal of Dove mens jell is to reach AED200,000 in the first year, with an
average whole price of AED110 and variable cost of AED80. Two options are
always expected whenever new product is joined to Dove segments. First
case is a number of percentage loss, near 11%. If this what the case is going
to be, then there will be more promotion on media of our product and we will
be more present in coming events, with reducing the price up to AED100.
Second option is profit gaining, more than it is planned. If this is going to be
the case then the price will go up to AED150. On the other hand, to make
this jell quite different to attract people, it requires a budget for offering high
standards. Our break-even analysis of Dove mens jell is as the following:
wholesale revenue AED110 per unit, variable cost AED90 per unit, first year
fixed cost is AED500,000. Based on these assumptions, the break-even
calculation is
500,000
110-90
Controls:

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

Our main focus and control is to adapt and respond to the rapid changing
environment in marketing area. Also, keep the standards of our quality and
service high. Nevertheless, the price must be suitable to customers and to
our companys overall cost. Balancing price and cost; quality and service;
stability and respond to changes, are requiring hard work and strong basis of
control in Dove group teams.
Marketing Plan Tools:
In Dubai, there is a library that is considered as the largest library in the city,
with huge variety and types of books, including to what relates to marketing
plan tools. Since Dove company and our team exists in Dubai , we have
chosen to select this library in Dubai Mall to rely on it for strategies and
tools:
-

Marketing plan and action handbook is written by John Ryan, explains

the whole process of marketing plan with number of tips to avoid the
weakness points in any plan strategy, it provides loads of examples

from real life to expand our knowledge.

Marketing project is a soft ware, done by American University of
Sharjah senior students and won an award of creative students. It has
brief explanation with diagrams, videos, wizards, and charts to explain
their points in easy and visionary way.

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha

Works Cited
"Why The Campaign For Real Beauty?" Dove Support. Unilever. Web. 12 May 2012.
<http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/supports.asp?url=supports.aspion=campaign&i
=1560>.
Lee, Joss Bernadette. "McClung's Magazine." Issuu.com. Winter 2008. Web. 12 May 2012.
<http://issuu.com/mcclungs/docs/winter2008/18>.

Bibliography
Hussain, S. (2010, May 10). SWOT analysis between two great competitors .
Retrieved May 1, 2012, from http://www.scribd.com/doc/31498694/SWOT-ANALYSISBetween-Two-Great-competitors-LUX-vs-Dove.
Kasi. (2011, July 28). Marketing Plan of Dove. Retrieved May 1, 2012, from
http://marketingmixx.com/marketing-plan-2/181-marketing-plan-of-dove.html.

Hamda Al Najjar 200902038

Maryam
Hind
Maha
Monitoring your Body's PH levels. (2010, Augest 11). Retrieved May 15, 2012, from
http://altered-states.net/barry/update178/index.htm.
Williams, N. (2005, November 1). Dove: Brand beautiful. Retrieved May 21, 2012,
from http://strategyonline.ca/2005/11/01/dove-20051101/.