Dove Hair had been facing a 10-year decline in a highly competitive, $6.2 billion U.S. haircare market, was dwarfed in media spend compared to their primary competitor, and faced an onslaught of in-store couponing activity. In order to reinvigorate brand sales and build brand awareness and love, we needed rich consumer insights and a strategy beyond delivering functional benefits.
To rebuild equity and create fuel for sustainable growth, we launched Love Your Curls, a consumer campaign that for the first time married the Dove Masterbrand mission with a Hair relevant conversation -- Curls.
In the US, we found that curls were both an emotionally and culturally charged topic for women, and much of that relationship played out online in social media conversation. Social media is now the new mirror for self-esteem and beauty, where women are actively talking about curly hair. There were more than 100MM impressions of negative curly hair conversation on Twitter in 2014.
Dove Hair uncovered several powerful insights around curls in the US. Shockingly, only 4 out of 10 girls with curly-hair think their hair is beautiful. However, there was a silver lining: these girls are significantly more likely to love their curls if curly-women in their lives love their own. From these insights, the LYC campaign was born.
Dove Hair set out to own curly conversation in a way no other brand could, and change the existing negative curly haired paradigm. #LOVEYOURCURLS was launched as the platform for women to speak out and embrace their luscious curls and thus inspire future generations to love their own.
With many women relying on straighteners, how do you convince them to love their curls? With the aim of celebrating curly hair and creating a movement, a provactive film was launched showing six girls' journeys from disliking their hair to embracing it. We created a national celebration of curls by illustrating our story arc via a robust video syndication & PR strategy, prompting millions of women to show how they #LoveYourCurls via our hashtag. We had breakthrough TV integrations on TODAY and The Real to act as the launch pad for our campaign.
To ensure we resonated with young girls and their mom's, we partnered with a best-selling children's author to create a book of poetry, inspired by #LoveYourCurls stories from real women - a downloadable e-book which they could share with their friends and personalize for the young girl in their life. We drove awareness of the ebook through an innovative partnership with Amazon, social, TV and PR.
Finally, in a space where social media plays such an important role for conversation around hair and beauty, we were at the forefront of the topic, by launching the world's first curly haired emojis, with the aim to allow women blessed with curly hair to express themselves. In the media, smooth, sleek and shiny hair is associated with beauty, so this became an addition to the campaign where women could express their love for curly hair. Media partners jumped on board and we successfully landed the #LoveYourCurls emojis through a mix of mobile advertising, TV integrations, cover units in Print, and being the first beauty brand to launch a hashflag on Twitter.
The Dove Hair Love Your Curls campaign drove unprecedented levels of success, reversing a 10 year sales/equity decline in the overall US Dove Hair business:
- Dove Hair sales increased 4% vs. YAG since the campaign launch – not only turning around a decline, but growing the business.
- Grew +700bps in unaided awareness.
Love Your Curls Video Results:
- 28.3MM film views across platforms, with 9.3MM film views occurring in the first 3 days, which was a faster start than any previous Dove campaign (benchmark was 25MM total views)
- 500MM social impressions via campaign hashtags; decreased negative social sentiment around curls by nearly 20%
eBook Results:
- 101+K downloads of the free e-book from Dove.com, Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play (benchmark was 100K)
- #1 Free Children's Book on Amazon (week of 6/22)
- Over 1,100 physical books requested by schools, libraries and community groups
Emoji Results:
- Over 900K keyboard downloads and sticker pack installs (surpassing total campaign benchmark by 250%)
- 50% App engagement rate in first week (benchmark was 24%)
- More than 1.7 million user interactions within the keyboard in less than a week
