WHI T E PAPER
In
Dove
We Trust
By Dori Molitor
WomanWi se
I
t has been more than four years now, but it is
not hard to remember what it was like when
Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty first launched.
In an instant I knew that this campaign tapped
into an intense, emotional issue with women.
It was so refreshing to see a brand that actually
seemed to care enough to understand women — her
self doubts, her conflict with feeling beautiful in the
face of stick-thin models held up to represent the ideal
of female beauty, and perhaps even the anger she
feels about the distorted messages young girls grow
up with today.
What was really remarkable, though, was that
this campaign came from a company in the beauty
business. We all knew the purpose was to sell more
product, as it should be, but it was so true and
authentic and timely. What we didn’t necessarily
realize at the time was that Dove was changing the
definition of corporate social responsibility.
Before Dove came along, corporate social
responsibility, or CSR, as the business world calls
it, was defined narrowly as a synonym for “cause
marketing.” Under that definition of CSR, it was
plenty good enough for a corporation simply to donate
some money, form an alliance with a not-for-profit
Dove’s Campaign For
Real Beauty offers a new
definition of corporate
social responsibility
foundation or demonstrate some concern for the
environment.
That kind of corporate social responsibility
certainly is worth applauding, but it does not come
close to the potential of what Unilever is approaching
with its Dove brand.
The difference is that the Dove Campaign for Real
Beauty didn’t just attach its brand superficially to a
charity or cause; it created a deep soul connection with
women on the most personal level.
In so doing, Dove created a powerful bond
between women and its brand, the kind of bond that
builds true trust, which can and should be the whole
point of corporate social responsibility.
Jus t A s k Ja n e t
Very few, if any, brands have connected with
women the way Dove has, but just about every one of
them could, and should. Just ask Janet.
Janet is a meek woman, just under five-feet tall,
MAY/JUNE 2008  THE HUB 31
in her mid 60s. I met her at a gathering honoring
volunteers for a local not-for-profit organization. In
our conversation I mentioned that I had just spoken
at a marketing conference on a panel about corporate
social responsibility and she had a message for me:
“Tell them to just quit stealing our money!”
In a flash, this somewhat timid, small, ordinary-
looking woman became an animated figure who stood
what seemed a foot taller. This change in her persona
made me gasp in silence. I knew that what she had
said was significant and yet I wasn’t completely sure
why, so I grabbed my notebook and wrote her words
down verbatim.
I told her she had just given me inspiration and
jokingly asked if I could quote her. She said, “You’re
damn right,” and said her name was “Janet…J…A…
N…E…T.”
Janet’s words hung with me for weeks. She had
summed it up and her passion conveyed the true
feeling of being a female consumer who feels every
purchase is lured by marketing schemes and you’re
forced to decide which purchase is the least of all evils.
Whatever happened to unadulterated goodwill?
When did we lose the idea of building a business
based on core values and ethics that truly put the
consumer first, knowing profits will follow?
That’s what CSR was designed to do over the past
quarter century, and yet its impact on consumer trust
has been minimal. This is partly because consumers
don’t trust corporate motives, and partly because
corporate motives are mainly focused on cleaning
up their reputations after scandals, greed and major
environmental disasters.
Today, a few CSR leaders are beginning to realize
competitive advantage from their initiatives, but many
are still focused on pursuing social responsibility as
a form of risk insurance. As a result, CSR’s potential
has been stunted by corporations employing it as
short-term “cause marketing” events, instead of being
deeply imbedded in the organic center of their “reason
for being” and core values.
The good news is that CSR’s potential as a
competitive opportunity has never been better because
unprecedented numbers of female consumers are
demanding it.
For example, according to a 2006 report by
Fleishman-Hillard and the National Consumers League,
65 percent of consumers “believe that a company’s
record of being socially responsible would be influential
to their decision whether to invest in a company.”
However, that same study also suggested that
32 THE HUB  MAY/JUNE 2008
few companies are earning that kind of investment
from consumers, either financially or emotionally.
Only one-fifth of consumers rated U.S. companies
as socially responsible and just 37 percent rated U.S.
companies as living up to consumer expectations.
Changing this means looking at CSR in a new
way that involves consumers on a highly personal and
emotional level. Dove offers a great starting point,
although even Dove hasn’t gone far enough.
A s Th e D ov e F l i e s
Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that,
four years in, Dove is reassessing its Campaign
for Real Beauty because its link to product sales
apparently is not strong enough (see “Dove Dot Com,”
page 28).
Even though millions of people watched the Real
Beauty videos and tuned into discussions about them
on Oprah, Ellen and other major network shows,
Advertising Age reported in September 2007 that Dove’s
sales growth slowed to 1.2 percent, after having
grown 12.5 percent in 2005 and 10.1 percent in 2006.
There could be any number of explanations for
why this is happening. Maybe the Campaign for Real
Beauty has lost its punch. Maybe some women have
figured out that Unilever also is behind the arguably
misogynist advertising for the Axe brand and smell
hypocrisy.
Maybe competitive pressures have grown stronger
or maybe too many women have decided that Dove
products aren’t quite as good as they should be. We
could speculate all day about the reasons for this
sudden and sharp decline, but there is no question
that it is real and that Unilever is concerned about it.
So, despite that the Dove brand reportedly gained
$1.2 billion in value over the past three years, Unilever
has now re-vamped the brand’s Real Beauty website to
include more in the way of explicit advertisements
and direct mentions of specific Dove products.
But if Unilever thinks this will solve its problems,
it is mistaken. If anything, it will make their problems
worse because it will underscore the worst suspicions
consumers have whenever a corporation does anything
even remotely altruistic — that it really was only about
selling products after all.
A M o v e m e n t , N o t A C am p a i g n
Dove’s mistake is that it never really invited or
engaged women to get involved in the cause. And it is
a cause. Building self-esteem among girls and women
is a social issue, and success can change the world.
 To date, Dove’s efforts have been extremely one
way. Yes, it is a campaign, but largely an advertising
campaign, albeit of the 21st century viral variety.
But the potential is to be a part of a movement.
Dove needs to join that movement instead of
defaulting to the same old advertising techniques.
A true movement demands an investment of
time and effort, and perhaps some sacrifice, because
when people do that they automatically become
more committed and passionate about the cause.
It’s not about whether you should buy a particular
product; it’s whether this is a cause worth fighting
for and getting involved with. The issue Dove has
raised — female self-esteem — is very much that kind
of cause.
What women want to know from Dove is, how
can we help? What can we do with our daughters,
in terms of mentoring or conversation? How can I
connect with other women to take collective action?
What can we contribute to the community? Why
isn’t Dove linking into mother-daughter workshops,
bringing that to a local level and creating ways for
women to join the cause?
In fairness, Dove does offer a “parent kit” that
has content on how to talk to your kids, but that’s
much too passive. They also promote “The Dove Self
Esteem Fund,” but have not made it clear how much
money has been raised or how donations are being
used. They do claim to have impacted 1.8 million
girls, but in the scheme of things that’s nothing for a
“campaign” of this scale.
Dove started a conversation, which is fantastic,
but what’s lacking is the depth of involvement, the
engagement, the participation and the commitment of
moving people to take action. Only when Dove gets
more women involved will they be more invested and
committed. That is what will directly drive product sales.
I t ’s A l l A b o u t Tr u s t
Let’s think back in time to how business was
done at the neighborhood grocer. Trust was forged
through personal relationships. The grocer’s focus
was on his friend, the consumer. He wasn’t distracted
by his competitor down the street, by his bank, or by
Wall Street.
He wasn’t even focused on transactions as much
as he was on the conversation he was having with his
customer. But if you look at how business is done
today, everything is so impersonal. The distance
Reprint from The HUB Magazine. © 2008 WomanWise LLC.
Deep Soul Connection is a trademark of WomanWise LLC.
between the customer and the merchant or marketer is
so vast today that it’s no wonder we don’t trust them
anymore. It’s like we’re talking to a logo or a package.
The idea that tacking a cause onto a product will
build trust is ludicrous because no one is listening
anymore. It’s all so one-way and anonymous.
The most immediate and strongest and profitable
kind of corporate social responsibility should be to
engage the consumer and champion personal issues
in society the way Dove has begun to do. Let’s change
the world by changing her world, one person at a time.
When businesses and consumers are
communicating that way, and are working on
common ground for a common purpose, that’s
where we begin to build trust just as the local grocer
once did. But before corporations can be socially
responsible in that sense, they need to develop a much
deeper understanding of their consumers.
Dove is starting from a great place because women
are its primary customers. But as you’ve heard so
many times in recent years, women are the primary
customers of just about everything from consumer
electronics to new cars to financial services and travel.
The competitive opportunity is wide open but
will start closing if CSR remains limited to a platform
for brands to support causes and charities. It should
instead be a platform for brands and consumers to work
together to find a common ground that promotes a
mutual purpose at the most personal and human level.
Like beauty, this concept starts from within. Henry
David Thoreau once said that a corporation doesn’t
have a conscience, but a corporation of conscientious
people is a corporation with a conscience.
That kind of thinking points to an organic,
cultural brand of humanity that infuses the entire
enterprise. True corporate responsibility starts there
because it is about business enriching our lives in a
way that has the potential to transform communities,
society and the world at-large. n
DORI MOLITOR is founder and ceo of
WomanWise LLC (womanwise.com)
a WatersMolitor Company, a hybrid
consultancy-agency specializing in
marketing brands to women. Dori can be
reached at dmolitor@womanwise.com
or (952) 797-5000.
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