Question

Which targeting strategy is Dove following? Explain briefly. Word count limit is (max.) 300.

Company case Dove: Building Customer Relationships Everywhere, One Gender at a Time This question left Unilever managers conflicted. Success with men would provide the much-needed expansion for the brand, However, attempting to get men to perceive Dove as a manly brand risked damaging the brand's successful image among women. Additionally, Unilever already had a wildly successful men's personal care brand in Axe. However, with Dove, Unilever would be targeting men not interested in Axe's edgy-at times even risqué-and youthful image. Positioning Dove for men would require great care. When it comes to consumer packaged goods, Unilever is about as big as they come. The company is a world-leading supplier of food, home, and personal care products. Its products can be found in a whopping seven out of ten homes globally, are avail able in over 190 countries, and are used by more than 2 billion people on a daily basis. This kind of global scope is rare, and with revenues of more than $66 billion per year, you'd think that Unilever would be content to slow down a bit and tend to the businesses at hand. Instead, Unilever plans to have revenues in excess of $100 billion by 2020, How does Unilever do it? By continually creating and develop ing brands that form strong relationships with consumers in mul- tiple consumer product-market segments. If Unilever's portfolio of brands overlooks certain types of customers, then the com- pany creates or acquires a new brand. This "house of brands" approach has made Uniriever the proud owner of powerhouse brands such as Noxzema, Ragu, Axe, Ben & Jerry's, Slim-Fast, Hellmann's, Q-tips, Vaseline, and Dove, to name just a few. Dove: Made for Women? Take Dove, for example. Dove is the number one brand of per sonal cleansing products in the United States, with a product portfolio that includes body bars and washes, face care treat- ments, antiperspirants and deodorants, and hair care products. By itself, the Dove brand pulls in nearly $4 billion a year for Uni- lever, prompting one expert to call it "the most impressive brand builder in the last 15 years." But coming off its very success ful long-term "Campaign for Real Beauty, Dove was starting to experience the stagnation that many mature brands face. Dove found that it was reaching the limits of expansion and the types of extensions it could support. After stumbling with the brand's attempts to penetrate the hair care market, Unilever managers knew that Dove needed a new way to grow. Dove had always been an undeniably feminine brand. Every thing about Dove's brand image--its name, logo, color palette, and communications-was created with women in mind. Al- though this laser-focused targeting had been a primary factor in the brand's decades-long success, ironically, it had become the brand's greatest limiting factor, especially given the rapid growth in the men's personal care products category. Could Dove sell its products to men? Breaking Out of the Box Dove supported its decision to enter the men's care market with a comprehensive strategy and genuine consumer insight. Rather than simply releasing products designed for men under the standard Dove brand, Unilever created a brand within the brand-Dove Men+Care. This sub-brand provides a masculine foundation and much-needed separation from the core Dove brand. But just as important, Men+Care was extendable into virtually any type of men's personal care product. Dove also ap- pealed to men through packaging design. With a base color of dark grey and a masculine palette of accent colors, the very ap pearance of Dove Men+Care products left no question as to the intended target customer. Unilever's highly successful Axe personal care line targets sin- gle men age 24 and under who have an active interest in social- izing and dating. So, by contrast, Dove Men+Care took aim at men age 25 to 54. Research revealed that men in this distinctive demographic were evolving. Typically married, they were taking on more household duties such as cleaning and shopping than similarly aged men in prior decades. More than half of men in this category were buying their own personal care products, and most of the rest wore influencing those purchases. The first products in the Dove Men+Care portfolio were skin care items. The line included three body washes, two bar soaps, and a shower scrub, products strategically designed to comple ment each other. The idea was to appeal to "men who are com fortable in their own skin," but who were receptive to the proven moisturizing power of Dove products. Dove is one of the few per sonal care brands that most men had in their homes growing up. So there was an established level of brand recognition and brano knowledge. Shortly after introducing the initial products, Dave adde an antiperspirant to the Men+Care line. More recently, Don Men+Care has become a more full spectrum brand that include facial care and hair care products. With its line of facial care prod ucts, Dove urges men to "Take better care of your face," wherea: its hair care products promise, 3X stronger hair." These nev product lines extend Dove's heritage in cleansing, moisturizing and providing the ultimate care. The Dove Mon+Care facial care products are designed to complement each other by helping men care for their skin in three casy steps: facial cleansing (cleanser that fights dryness), shaving (shaving gel that prevents irritation, and face care (post shave balm soothes skin and a moisturizer that hydrates and protects). Dove's rosearch revealed that 48 percent of men in the United States never use face wash and 46 percent never use a face moisturizer, even though most men admit they know they should. Rob Candelino, vice president of Unilever Skincare, explains the insight behind the facial care products and their positioning: "Men today have a great deal to care about from their families to their careers, but they don't always give their personal care the same level of attention. Neglecting to properly cleanse and mois- turize their skin, or doing so but using harsh products like regular soep, al contribute to a man's face looking tired and feeling wom. New Dove Men+Care Face products seek to help men eliminate needless torture from their grooming routine and help put their best face forward when it matters most." "Men today have a great deal to care about from their families to their careers, but they don't always give their personal care the same level of attention. Neglecting to properly cleanse and mois- turize their skin, or doing so but using harsh products like regular scep, al contribute to a man's face looking tired and feeling wom. New Dove Men+Care Face products seek to help men eliminate needless torture from their grooming routine and help put their best face forward when it matters most." Unilever has taken great care to craft promotional message consistent with the brand image of Dove Men+Care. The launci of its facial care products was accompanied by an ad showing the abuse a man's face takes. Snowballs, motor oil, pokes fron a child, windburn from a roller coaster, and "deserved" slaps pro vided illustration for the tagline, "End the face torture." A series a follow-up ads showed real men describing their typical face care routine (soep, no moisturizer, stinging after shavel followed by the results they experience ("It feels tight." "It doesn't feel good at all and Definitely stings"). Dove Men+Care facial products are distributed alongside other Men+Care products through grocery store chains and mass merchandisers and are priced competitively with simila products from Neutrogena and Noxema. The products have per formed well, prompting Unilever to up the ante. Less than a yea after the introduction of Dove's line of men's facial care products. Unilever added the three-step five-product Expert Shave line to Men+Care. With prices starting at $21.99 for each item, Dove is eyeing the market for men's products from department store brands like Clinique, Sephora, Tom Ford, and Kieni's. Most recently, Dove has taken its advertising for Men+Care to a new level. According to Candelino, "We hear from 73 percent of men that they're falsely or inaccurately depicted in advertis- Ing. Specifically, says Candelino, the common depictions of mer nacivertising can be boiled down to three categories: guys ob- Sessed with winning the affections of women, he-men who are into stereotypical manly activities such as body building or fast cars, and dads who are seen more as buffoons than respected parents. So Dove Men+Care launched a campaign to combat these caricatures as much as build its own brand. Called "Real Moments, the campaign promotes real-life fatherhood tales from father figures like Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade. Having just written a book entitled, A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger than Basketball, Wade was the perfect celebrity to give an endorsement. "When fans learn that playing 'Defense" for Dwyane Wade means teaching his sons how to guard a mini- hoop in his living room, instead of a fellow player during a profes- sional game," says Candelino, it hits home where men today place priority-caring for their family comes first." An Instant Success In a short period of time, Dove has accomplished a great deal. It successfully stepped outside the established boundaries of a brand created to target a specific market segment-women. In breaking beyond that segment, the brand has become an au- thority on mon's personal grooming. And Dove has done this without alienating its core segment of women. Unilever's investment in Dove as a men's care brand seems to have paid off. Shortly after the new Dove Men+Care line debuted, Symphonyirl put the new brand on its list of top 10 new products. In an annual study of most desirable brands, Dove ranked fourth among both women and men. Best of all for Unilever, Dove's previously flat overall sales rose 9.8 percent in Men+Care's first year and have continued to climb since. It seems that Dove's stated objective for Dove Men+Care, to "al- low men to better care for themselves so they can care for what matters most to them," is right on target.

Answer 1

Dove uses a market segmentation strategy to target their specific customer groups. They are creating a distinct brand and focusing on selling a brand rather than individual products. First, they created a Dove range of products for women only. It was specifically created product portfolio which It includes face care, hair care items only for woman. It includes a range of body bars and washes, face care treatments, antiperspirants and deodorants, and hair care products. Dove range of woman’s products was generating revenue of $4 billion a year for Unilever, it was called "the most impressive brand builder in the last 15 years." The dove range of woman products was designed and packaged specifically as a woman range staring from their color scheme to their logo and advertising.

Dove saw stagnating sales but the product line and branding was specifically to match the woman customer group.

In dove range of products, they launched Dove Men+Care. Again they targeted specific customer group i.e. men aged group 25 to 54 years old. These were the evolving men who are contributing to household responsibilities, are professionals and also spend time with their families. They created a new image of the real man and introduced a campaign called "Real Moments, the campaign promotes real-life fatherhood tales from father figures like Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade”. This broke away from the traditional framework of projecting men. The marketing was focused on showing how men need to take care of themselves and how it will improve their looks. The Men+care packaging to branding was revised to have a masculine look. The company introduced a wide portfolio of skincare products, shaving gels, and shaving line products. They targeted the man who was interested in personal grooming and is also involved in family responsibilities.

Dove follows a mass marketing-focused branding strategy that clearly addresses the needs of a particular segment. The branding, product line, packaging, logos, and the color scheme is devised specifically to attract the specific customer group, for example, men and woman age group 25-54 years. This is the target segment Dove has in mind when creating the brand. They have branded products to make people feel special which shows in their growing revenues. Their sales increased by 9.8% first year after launching of Men+Care range of products.