PROMOTIONS

INTEGRATED MARKETING CHANNELS

Marketing communication mix:

• Advertising: The brand had a campaign for real beauty and this was initiated by the brand manager Kerstin Dunleavy. They launched this campaign so as to acquire a better market position. In this campaign the brand portrayed images of women of all ages, sizes and shapes. This was embossed on a large number of billboards, hoarding, there were tvcs etc. They started this with a mission of creating a difference in the minds of all the women who feel that they were not beautiful. They started a poll for the people which questioned them about their perception of what they feel is the real beauty. This they did by putting up the questions on the billboards and hoardings and such. The people had to leave a reply on the questions. Besides this the brand has advertised itself on other platforms such as the television and the internet. One such advertisements came with the tagline of "is it love? No it's Dove"

• Sales promotion: Dove did a lot of sales promotion for its campaign. A few promotional strategies included giving out free Real Beauty T-shirts to all those customers who made a bill of more than INR499. They also gave out free samples before launching their products into the market. They provided the the customers to join "your love"  which allowed them to have access to view the special offers and innovations. They were also entitled to receiving expert advice and beauty care tips. They had a toll free number for the customer support.

• Events and experiences: The events and experiences of the brand contained the charateristics of being highly relevant and also engaging its customers. Along with the 'Real Beauty Campaign' they also conducted the 'ad makeover' campaign. It was basically started to displace all the ads that left a negative impact on the minds of the people. The ad aimed at making women feel good about themselves. This started the campaign on Facebook and followed the crowdsourcing policy by letting the women themselves decide the messages that would make most women feel good.

• Public relations and publicity: One of major aspects contributing to the success of the 'Real Beauty Campaign' was the effective use of PR. PR affected the customers cognitive thinking towards the whole concept of Beauty which in turn lead them to respond positively. Usually, the News section of Dove had in it the press releases and were published in many magazines and newspapers. The "Dove in the News" section contains a number of press releases that were published in various newspapers and magazines.

• Direct marketing: The brand provided a toll free number to enable the customer services. Besides the 'Your Dove' was conceptualized to make the customers feel a little special and this they managed to do by providing them information about the special offers, product innovations and providing expert advice and beauty care tips so that the customers can by themselves be aware of how to best take care of their skin.

• Interactive marketing: Both the 'Real Beauty'  and the 'Ad makeover' campaigns provided a platform for the customers to respond with their perception.

• Word of mouth marketing: When dove first entered the Indian markets it launched its beauty bar at a premium price which most consumers refused to accept. Thus the only customers were those who had traveled a lot and knew about the product benefits. These people could be the first sources for the word-of-mouth marketing. Later on the campaign activities conducted by the brand lead to more and more people talk about the campaigns and the brand.

THE DOVE CAMPAIGN FOR REAL BEAUTY

• Launched in 2004
• It was an initiation taken to stress on the wider definition of beauty
• Efforts were to taken to engrave in the thoughts of people that beauty is a measure of confidence and not that of anxiety
• Hoardings were put up and people could participate in the polls
• Many workshops were conducted 
• The Dove Self-esteem fund was a part of the campaign which helped women increase their self-esteem by making them realize that they are beautiful.

• There were several workshops conducted with the vision of making women realize that they are beautiful. One of this was the Dove real beauty sketches workshop. People came in and described themselves and an artist sketched their portrait with just the description. The sketch was redone with the description the friends of the same person gave. By doing so it was seen that most women do not realize how beautiful they are and this workshop helped build a sense of confidence about their beauty in their minds.

Main Channels of Communication:

The Website

You Tube

Commercials on the television

Social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter)

Billboards and hoardings