Analysis Of Integrated Marketing Communications Campaign

IBMS, PT3 Diemen, April 2007

Analysis of integrated marketing communications campaign

Dove Pro - Age.

Prepared for: Menno van Voorthuizen

Prepared by: Ewa Kozlowska

(405825)

Table of contents:

1. Introduction. 3

2. Marketing communications and branding. 3

3. Target groups and positioning. 4

4. Analysis of elements of communication mix, and message strategy. 4

5. Integration level of the communication. 6

6. Marketing communication objectives. 6

7. Building a relationship with customers. 7

8. The campaign’s influence on the brand equity. 7

9. Type of the research used to define marketing communication direction. 8

10. Conclusion. 9

11. Bibliography. 10

1. Introduction.

This report present the analysis of the communications campaign of Dove Pro Age, which is a part of the big Campaign for Real Beauty. Dove is one of the brands of Unilever. It has been chosen for analysis because of its uniqueness, originality and innovative character.

The assignments consists of nine short chapters and is ended with conclusion. The main parts of the report consider the issues such as branding, positioning, target markets, integrated communications mix and communications objectives.

The whole report is based on secondary research. The main source of information, needed to do the analysis of the campaign, was internet. Theory needed to support the analyze of found data, was strived mainly in the text book, “Marketing Communication”; A European Perspective by P. de Pelsmacker, M. Geuens and J. van den Bergh.

2. Marketing communications and branding.

Marketing communications have an important role in building and maintaining brand value. According to American Marketing Association “brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or combination of these, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers, and to differentiate them from those of a competitor.”

Dove is one of the Unilever’s brands and belongs to manufacturer brands category. Unilever tries to differentiate its brand from other skin firming products. They are doing this by advertising their products as a Pro Age cosmetics, while all other companies are struggling to come up with anti age products. The range of Dove’s Pro Age cosmetics contains creams, lotions, gels etc.

The brand with help of its communications support became a symbol of real beauty. The advertisements are directed to women who likes their body and are resigned themselves to their looks. Pro Age campaign is not showing beautiful young and slim bodies but real average women. The campaign promote not only the products but also tries to teach women to accept themselves the way they are. The catchphrase of pro age products ad is “ Beauty has no age limits”. “Dove wants to instill a new attitude in the anti-aging category- from negative and fear- driven to affirmative and hope- driven. In doing so we hope to encourage and inspire more women to see the potential that lies within their skin and hair, and themselves. Pro Age is Dove’s commitment to women who are entering what could be the most exciting stage of their lives.”

This brand strategy is so called line extension. Pro age products are one of a few other cosmetic lines which are all targeted in the Dove’s real beauty campaign. This campaign is a brand building activity, which contains different communications models. The most important are:

· Persuasion advertising- tries to establish a link between a brand and an attribute or benefit. Dove tries to persuade people that women are beautiful in every age.

· Relationship advertising- stresses the value of the brand for the customer, reinforces emotional involvement, brand associations and personality, and favorable attitudes.

· Emotions- many audiences feel empathy with heroines from Dove’s ads, they identify with them, and want to feel same confidence with their , often far from perfect, bodies.

· Likeable ads- women like the fact that they do not have to look at beautiful young models in TV ads, but at average women with who they may identify themselves.

The decision situation while buying Dove’s pro age products is characterized as follows: low involvement, affective rather then cognitive and transformational. Because the motivation (as a willingness to engage in behavior, pay attention etc.) is low and ability and opportunity factors on attitude formation and marketing communications processing are high, the overall elaboration likelihood model is low. This means that consumers will process the information peripherally. Besides of that it is also affective. Some studies found that “the difference in brand preference before and after exposure to advertising was twice as positive for consumers who liked the ad a lot as compared to consumers who had a neutral Aad. Ad likeability might be important factor because of its ability to attract attention and facilitate information processing.” The message of Dove’s ads touches many women’s self confidence area, which has been always threaten with examples of beauty presented in TV commercials or magazines, often not realistic to achieve for average women. Dove’s advertisements presents women’s bodies, which are far from perfect and due to that many women identify themselves with characters from these ads. They see that every woman can be beautiful,