Dove has established its core brand around the notion of "silky smoothness", a reference to the product experience of Dove chocolate. However, after years of showing brown pieces of silk in commercials, interest was fading. We needed to do more than just tell the “silky smoothness” story, but truly find a way to make consumers experience it directly through brand content.

We decided to leverage a new sub-culture of internet videos: ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), a technique that uses sensory stimulations to trigger sensations. We captured all the best audio-visual sensorial triggers and used them to recreate the feeling of Dove’s silky smooth pleasure, in two high quality video productions. It is the first time any brand taps into this ASMR genre.

The videos were launched on social networks and immediately sparked a debate between the public and KOLs over the sensations they felt experiencing the Dove ASMR content.

We created the first ASMR high value production with two videos using Dove's main TVC celebrities. In the first one, Li Yi Feng describes the process by which Dove chocolate achieves a silky smooth texture through slow and repetitive grinding of the cocoa beans. In the other one, Angela Baby shows her OCD habits upon eating Dove chocolate combined with hyper-realistic sound design of her opening the crinkly wrapper, the snap of the bar and her teeth biting into the chocolate.

These sensory overloads, drawing the viewer into the intimate experience of Dove chocolate, were released on iQiyi and Weibo social networks.

In parallel, we partnered with Guokr, a popular science platform that scientifically tested our films to ascertain they really did have the physiological effects that simulate pleasure in viewers. KOLs were invited to take part in the experiment and tweet their experiences to drive buzz around the content.