Studies show that when dads are able to take the time to get involved in their child’s life early on, everyone benefits. The problem is, most companies don’t offer proper paternity leave. And if they are, most new dads don’t feel comfortable taking it. So, to take the importance of paternity leave mainstream, Dove Men sought to give real dads from around the world a platform to share their voice and advice. To achieve this, we set out to challenge and redefine the archetype of modern masculinity by inspiring men to finally start talking about how they define masculinity, express their identity, and explore what care means to them.

On Father’s Day, we gave real dads from around the world a platform to share their voice and advice. We called it Dear Future Dads. More than a film, Dear Future Dads became a call-to-action for fathers everywhere to take the time to care and share their advice with other men. Along with the film, we launched a digital hub on DoveMenCare.com to provide men and their families tangible resources when searching for how to go about asking for and taking paternity leave.

An overwhelming majority of parents around the world believe that it’s important to have access to and utilize paid paternity leave benefits, but most dads who have paid leave don’t ever take their full time off. To expose this tension and help normalize paternity leave, we developed a Father’s Day campaign letting our target demo of men 25-49 years old know that Dove Men+Care is championing paternity leave for all dads, because when men take the time off work to care for their newborn, everyone benefits – including their families, workplaces, and communities. To support the program and creative, we drove the campaign narrative by focusing our PR efforts on new proprietary research developed with Promundo, which uncovered new truths about men’s relationship to care and validated the outdated stereotypes most dads associate with taking this crucial time off for the birth of a new child.

Before launching the campaign, we discovered that many U.S. men were going to crowdfunding websites like GoFundMe and MyTake12 to ask for financial support to take this time off. On launch day, Dove Men+Care surprise-funded every paternity leave request they found, helping 27 real families take the time they needed to bond with their new children. We highlighted these emotional stories through PR and encouraged recipients to share their stories across their social channels, which we then amplified. The campaign launch also included the release of our new film, ‘Dear Future Dads’, and a digital hub on DoveMenCare.com to provide men and their families with tangible resources to help advocate for better paternity leave policies. Finally, we partnered with Time To Care, an organization responsible for passing paid leave in NY State, on a panel discussion attended by media and influencers, to discuss the importance of paid paternity leave laws.