Digital marketing excellence by Unilever’s Axe and Dove

Axe and Dove are two very different products with different target marketsunder the same Unilever brand.

AXEDove

Appeals to young, average

men who after using axe

products, attract girls by

tens, hundreds or even

thousands.

Effectively uses unconventional

media channels. For example-

Axe Patrol, which scopes out bar

and club scenes and sprays men

with body sprays.

Advertises and associates only male dominated channels and organizations to reach target consumers.

Has unique commercials which have gathered millions of views!

Also runs print advertisements

in various popular magazines

To stay cool, fresh and relevant it launches a new fragrance every year

Aspirational Brand

Has become the most popular grooming brand

Message focused on attracting beautiful women

Targets mostly 15-25 year old males.

Unilever’s dove speaks to women in an encouraging tone and message. It launched the “Real Beauty” campaign to promote the message that real beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.

It also launched the “wrinkled or wonderful campaign” which was very controversial but created a large PR buzz.

To promote it’s brand amongst it’s older consumers it also features elder women in it’s advertisements.

It introduced the “Real Beauty Sketches” to reach out better to consumers.

In order to promote self esteem and to remove negative ads it launched the Ad Makeover on Facebook which was a huge success.

The emotional brand

Research revealed that only 4% of women considered themselves to be beautiful

Dove promotes skin products and combats unrealistic projections of beauty.

Unilever as a global brand

Unilever is a global brand with many different brands

under it’s portfolio like Axe and Dove. Each brand’s effort

are tailored for it’s specific target market and they are

different from each other.

So is there a conflict of interest?

No! Not a conflict of interest as Unilever is an umbrella brand and consumers don’t view them as a same brand.

How are the Axe and Dove campaigns similar?

Young men, like women frequently suffer from poor self esteem, lack of confidence and poor body image. Our advertisements are primarily designed to give them a boost of confidence. Fernando Machado Dove Skin Vice President

Disclaimer- Created by Anurag Roy during a marketing management internship for Prof. Sameer Mathur, IIM-Lucknow

Anurag Roy Prof. Sameer Mathur