Development and Analysis of Two Mini Case Studies, Case Study Example

When major companies run a successful campaign, other companies study their strategy in order to mimic or integrate them into their own. The purpose of the analysis is to provide two mini case studies that showcase a success and a failure from two major companies in order to develop a deeper analysis of how they obtained this outcome. The first mini case will be on Dove, their campaign for Real Beauty has been a major success for the Unilever Company. While within the same Unilever family, AXE failure is a matter of marketing failure, although successful in sales, their controversial ads have won them numerous fails in advertisements.

Dove has long since been one of the most well-known beauty and soap brands. They have netted over $2.5 billion in sales in over 80 countries, which a product list including cleansing bars, body and hand washes, face and hair care, deodorant, and body lotions. Founded in 1957, Dove created “The Beauty Bar” with memorable ads that ran in newspapers, and magazines. The 80’s brought endorsements from Dermatologists and Physicians that named it as one of the best beauty bars in the market. In 2000 Dove thrived and started to differentiate itself in the market by adding more products to their product line. However, there was a disconnect with women, and while many other beauty brands were entering the market, Dove wanted to differentiate itself from others. In 2002 they embarked on a worldwide investigation with the help of psychologists that created a survey that asked over 3000 women in over 10 countries questions about their self-image and what their definition of beauty was. The results showed that a majority of the women surveyed didn’t feel beautiful.  These results motivated Dove to create a campaign that reached out to women all around the world to give them a better definition of what is beautiful. Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign used a different advertisement strategies that a lot of marketers were just realizing its potential. Their marketing techniques included showing real women with Photoshop in their underwear on billboards, print ads, and in commercials. The also targeted young girls and adults with self-esteem issues by creating controversial film including executives’ daughters sharing their insecurities. The Real Beauty campaign utilized a space within the internet that included taking over YouTube with short films helping to generate buzz with millions of views, articles, interviews, and TV segments that included topic discussion on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, and Good Morning America to name a few. The TV ads also helped to launch their website to draw attention to their Real Beauty Campaign.

What makes Dove Real Beauty Campaign a success is not only for its innovative marketing strategies that help bring attention to the powers of the internet, but also in 2004 after the campaign officially launched, Dove saw a revenue of $50 billion and in 2006 one of the 10 brands that had the greatest percentage gain in brand health and business value with a growth of $1.2 billion. The campaign returned $3 for every $1 spent. In the first six months of the campaign, sales of Dove’s firming products increased 700 % in Europe and in the United States, sales for the products in the advertisements increased 600 % in the first two months of the campaign.(Quroa,2010)  They have won several awards and continue to excel and create buzz with new ads. Overall the campaign has been successful on a global scare, making Dove one of the leaders in the cleansing market. Socially, Dove helped to bring awareness to the millions of young girls and women that struggled with self-esteem issues and created Self-Esteem Fund that supports Body Talk an educational program in schools throughout the world, and workshops for young girls and women.

On the opposite of the spectrum is company partner AXE or Lynx in other parts of the world, has run many campaigns that cater to their line of Men’s body wash, hair care, and deodorant lines. First launched in France in 1983 by conglomerate Unilever the main product focus was men’s deodorant that included fragranced aerosol deodorant body spray, the deodorant stick, roll-on, and other deodorant products. In 2009, AXE expanded their product line to include men’s fragrances and colognes, body wash, shower gels, aftershaves, hair and skin care products. “Targeting 14- to 25-year-old men, the Axe brand was sold in sixty countries and in the early 2000s had annual sales approaching $600 million.” (Austen-Smith, Galinsky, 2012)  AXE has always relied heavily on their innovative marketing strategies to appeal to their young male demographic. In most commercial ads there are men spraying their bodies in order to attract good-looking women.  AXE Effect is the company’s tag line with the infamous, “Getting the girl has never been easier, thanks to the AXE Effect.” (AXE, 2013) However, as much success that AXE brings Unilever, they have been plagued with a string of marketing and PR failures that has the court of public opinion talking.

One of the first to point out are their sexist advertisements that usually has women fawning in scantily clad clothes fawning over men once they spray or put the product on. “Based on this sales pitch, they created “The Axe Effect” campaign which depicted very sexualized and physically attractive women chasing down men who wore Axe products.” (Elon.Edu, 2012) Like Dove, AXE set out and hired media agency, MindShare in order to create a global media plan that would get the brand more world known. The AXE Effect campaign has been one of the most popular, discussed, and analyze in all sectors of the marketing and business world. The campaign has attracted millions of male consumers in buying their products and cornered the market for deodorant and body products for young men. Most of the ads include, women chasing down men ripping off clothing, a cop chasing a robber ripping off his clothing, and a man made of AXE Chocolate getting chased with women biting chunks off his body. While this doesn’t bother the male consumers, AXE is readying their launch to appeal to women consumers, however, with most commercials being criticized by the likes of the Huffington Post, Forbes, Times, and The New York Post to name a few that are all mostly women authors this campaign for women seems failed from the start. With the most recent with a headless set of breast being attracted to a full head of hair (male) the only two characters in the commercial, with the implication that breast are what men see first. Along with other sexist advertisements has sparked an online petition to boycott the company. Unlike Dove, their marketing strategy failed.

When comparing both companies each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Both companies are under the umbrella company of Unilever, however each have different messages and strategies. Both companies are successful, however Dove is the most successful financially and socially in the business world. AXE when branching out has major hurdles, as the pressure from the online petition may shift the way that AXE advertises. Until then based on the cases presented AXE is a marketing failure, while Dove is a marketing success.

AXE                                                                         Dove

References

AXE. (2013). Unilever. Retrieved from http://www.unileverusa.com/brands-in-action/detail/AXE-/298199/

Austen-Smith, David, Galinsky, Adam D. (2012). “The Axe and the Dove: Managing Across Brands at Unilever.” Kellogg Insight. Retrieved from http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/the_axe_and_the_dove_managing_across_brands_at_unilever/

Deighton, John. “Dove: Evolution of a Brand.” (2007). Harvard Business School.

Hagler, Frank. (2012). “Boycott AXE Deodorant: The Latest Ad Campaign Proves that Sexism Sells.” PolicyMic. Retrieved from http://www.policymic.com/articles/14366/boycott-axe-deodorant-the-latest-ad-campaign-proves-that-sexism-sells

Kurtzleben, Danielle. (2013). “Do Dove and Axe Sell the Same Message?” US News. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/04/18/unilever-faces-criticism-for-real-beauty-ad-campaign

O’Donnell, Daniel (2008). “Unilever’s Dove and Axe: Examples of Hypocrisy or Good Marketing?” Case Study Competition (Arthur W. Page Society): 39–51. Retrieved from http://awpagesociety.com/images/uploads/08CaseStudy_Journal.pdf

Seymour, Taylor. (2012). “Dove vs. Axe: Hypocrisy or Good Marketing?” Elon.Edu. Retrieved from https://blogs.elon.edu/mkt412/?p=1946

“Was Dove Campaign a Success?” (2010). Quora. Retrieved from http://www.quora.com/Was-Doves-Real-Beauty-Campaign-successful