#SpeakBeautiful

A very unique caused-related marketing campaign I wanted to talk about is Dove’s #SpeakBeautiful campaign. In the past few years Dove has really stepped up in trying to change the way women view their bodies. I am sure many of us have seen the various viral YouTube videos created by Dove that tug on the heart strings and focus on empowering women and young girls. Dove’s newest campaign has taken a far more unique approach to a cause-related market campaign as they have teamed up with Twitter to diminish negative social chatter around self image. The campaign began roughly one year ago and continues to grow in success. People were encouraged to retweet a post on Dove’s Twitter account that includes the hashtag #SpeakBeautiful. Dove then automatically responds to the retweet with a link that directs the user to a custom microsite. This microsite includes a chart of Twitter data that is then compared to a chart showing other users tweets about self image and how the users tweet stacks up to theirs. A custom algorithm was created to highlight negative tweets in realtime that occurred during events such as the Oscars.This helped to identify the need for more positive self talk and less body shaming that circulates on Twitter.

According to Twitter, the campaign was incredibly successful as it earned over a billion impressions and reduced negative tweets over the past year about the beauty of others by 68 per-cent and self beauty by 40 per-cent.This campaign is attractive in more ways than one. The Dove brand focuses on empowering women and emphasizing that being attractive or beautiful starts from within and then reflects out. It is difficult today to find brands that are accepting of various skin colors, body types and shapes. Dove encourages women to love themselves and in doing so encourages them to be accepting of others “flaws”. There is beauty in imperfection. 

An interesting pitfall for the brand is that the same company that owns Dove also owns AXE, the very popular male body spray company. There is an inherent flaw in this as Dove and AXE contradict each other in their portrayal of women and sexuality. AXE commercials are well known for featuring thin beautiful barely clothed women and meanwhile Dove is featuring women of all sizes and shapes in their commercials. This calls into question if  Dove is simply playing on the insecurities of women to make money or do they genuinely care about how women feel? How would all of this play out on Twitter if someone had raised this matter? What is a celebrity sheds light on the Dove and Axe connection? I believe this cause-related marketing campaign is wonderful in theory, I just hope it doesn’t backfire and that the new hashtag associated with Dove doesn’t become #SpeakTruthful to reflect the companies contradictive marketing messages. This would not only have a negative affect on the brand itself but would also put Twitter in a very uncomfortable position.

Find more about the campaign here

Check out their Twitter page here