DOVE SPIKED WITH UGLY

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TitleDOVE SPIKED WITH UGLY
BrandUNILEVER
Product / ServiceDOVE
CategoryA01. Best Use of Television/Cinema
EntrantMINDSHARE Shanghai, CHINA
Entrant Company:MINDSHARE Shanghai, CHINA
Media Agency:MINDSHARE Shanghai, CHINA

Credits

Credits

Name Company Position
Mateo Eaton Mindshare Content Director
Anthea Foong Mindshare Account Director
Karl Cluck Mindshare Strategy Director
James Baginski Mindshare Managing Partner
Nick Binns Mindshare Tactical Panning Director
Li Qian Mindshare Production Manager
Jeffrey Tsui Mindshare Insights Director
Arthur Chen Ogilvy One Brand Director
Joy Zhu Ogilvy One Account Planner
Patrick Zhou Unilever Media Diretcor
Sunny Lin Unilever Brand Director
Icey Han Unilever Brand Manager
Lily Hua Unilever Brand Manager

Results and Effectiveness

50+ million viewers watched the Ugly Betty premiere which was consistently the highest rated show in its daypart with average ratings of 5.6% and program share of 8.9%. There was tremendous PR value in the resulting millions of searches, forum comments, and press articles. Unaided awareness grew 75% and sales shipments doubled. Distributors made unsolicited requests to stock the brand. Most impressively, market share increased 12.5% which is directly credited to Dove’s involvement in Ugly Betty. Ugly Betty effectively re-launched the iconic brand in China making Dove part of the cultural conversation in a way a regular TVC never could.

Creative Execution

On behalf of Dove, a strategic agreement was negotiated for the rights to an extensive brand integration and talent usage agreement for Ugly Betty with the local producers. The concept of four levels of branded integration, consisting of creating branded story arcs, product usage, and high and low level product placement, were introduced to demonstrate branded content value to Dove. Dove’s presence was substantial: 3,100 seconds in-show per season across the show’s 5 seasons and 400 episodes. Dove aligned strategically with the drama’s protagonist, Wudi, who has a beautiful personality but is below average in looks. Throughout the drama, Wudi regularly shares her trials with her Dove doll who is her confidant. The sponsorship was supported with specially-produced Dove TVCs featuring Ugly Betty, branded show trailers, Betty’s blog on Dove.cn, in-store promotions featuring Betty’s on-air doll, and much more. All channels worked in unison to support the complex communication messages.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

In the US and Europe Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign was a commercial and critical success. But in China, the campaign never caught on. The brand was dormant with little communications activity in 2007. Chinese women are pragmatic about beauty and have little of the body image crisis of their Western counterparts. Conversely, in this economically mobile society – attention to beauty is a symbol of professional achievement. Among many middle-class young women, there’s tremendous anxiety about succeeding in the “New China”. So “Real Beauty” needed another dimension – to provoke a discussion of “beauty” in the context of professional class and status. To make the brand truly “talk-able”, it needed to become a force in popular Chinese culture. The idea: develop a China-version of the international mega-hit Ugly Betty, set the show in an ad agency, and make Dove and discussions of beauty integral to the program.