Marketing mix of Dove

Introduction:

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Dove is one of the most iconic beauty brands from the portfolio of Unilever. It started as a simple beauty soap and now the Dove brand sells a complete range of personal and skin care products including soaps, shampoos and other products.  Dove’s beauty formula of mild cleansers made it a highly popular product among the female customers. However, Unilever reinvented the brand in 2013 after the launch of its new marketing strategy which was focused at real world beauties. This strategy proved a hit leading to higher customer loyalty and growth in popularity.

Have a look at the marketing mix of Dove including its four P’s – Product, Place, Price and Promotion.

Product:

The core product of Dove is the beauty bar. However, Unilever extended the product line seeing the high degree of success Dove achieved. Now, Dove sells an entire range of skin care products including beauty bars, shampoos and face wash. These products come in varying sizes to cater to various consumer segments’ needs and usage. In the body care segment, Dove has brought soap and body wash and in the hair care segment, Shampoo, conditioners and more products. Apart from them, Dove has also brought deodorants and antiperspirants. Over time, Dove’s product range has kept growing larger and now also includes oils, body lotion and face wash.

Place:

Dove is a brand from the portfolio of Unilever. Its products are sold in nearly all corners of the world. Apart from offline and traditional channels, Dove also uses online channels for the sales of its products. Unilever has a global sales, supply and distribution network that it uses to reach it customers. Dove products are sold in various corners of the world through its distribution network.

Price:-

Dove products are premium products. However, in terms of pricing strategy, Dove has priced them a bit affordably. These products are priced above the average soaps in the market. However, they are not meant to cater exclusively to the higher end segment of the market. So, the company has priced them so that they are accessible to both middle class and upper end consumers.

Promotion:-

Dove uses a unique promotion strategy for the promotion of its brand and products. The company instead of advertising it as a beauty bar and beauty brand of stars, has used a distinct promotional strategy that targets the real world people. As a part of Dove’s real beauty campaign, it included real world beauties for promoting its brand. The main focus of the campaign is to break the existing beauty stereotypes. However, the campaign has grown quite large since its launch and now extends to various more projects whose focus is women’s empowerment. This has helped Dove acquire a distinct image and apart from growing its sales worldwide has also helped it make its customer connection stringer. Its real beauty campaign was very popular and apart from higher popularity also led to higher sales.

Conclusion :-

Dove is a world-famous personal care brand by Unilever. It is among the most popular skin care brands of the world. Apart from its composition which is distinct from the other soaps and beauty products in the market, its marketing strategy has also given it a distinct advantage. Its real beauty campaign has helped it grow its market share and its customer connection stronger. Dove has grown its range of products. However, its quality has remained the same and more and more people have become a part of its campaign targeted at breaking the beauty stereotypes.