In India, the pursuit of beauty has one goal – marriage.

For Indian women, beauty related anxieties and insecurities begin when they’re children as social pressure results in conditioning that makes them feel like they are not good enough.

This was an opportunity for Dove to make good on its purpose of making beauty a source of joy and not anxiety. And in doing so, cement its position in the hearts and minds of the audience This was a necessary intervention in a highly price-sensitive market, where the brand was at risk of becoming one amongst many.

The Brief: Build stature and strengthen brand love by being meaningful to women in India.

Objectives:

- Reach 57 million Indian households

- Provoke conversation around beauty-based stereotypes.

- Change perceptions about Dove as a ‘brand that broadens the definition of beauty & challenges negative stereotypes’

- Create a positive impact on society.

How could something as beautiful as finding a life-partner become so ugly?

That is the big question the campaign idea was designed to provoke.

But the bigger question was, what could Dove do to make a real difference?

#StopTheBeautyTest is an idea born out of conversations with real women from across the country. The advertising brought to life stories of women who faced judgement and rejection by prospective in-laws for not being tall-fair-slim with straight long hair. It throws light on unseen impact of these judgements on their self-esteem and confidence.

By challenging beauty stereotypes, Dove campaigns for a more inclusive definition of beauty and calls to end a cruel practice that is responsible for beauty anxieties and diminished self-worth for women In India.

#StopTheBeautyTest was a campaign for urban women consisting of 70 million households pan India.

The PR strategy was designed around getting maximum reach, creating the right influence and generating buzz around the campaign through nationwide conversations about Dove’s effort to #StopTheBeautyTest. The four pillars of our strategic approach are as follows:

1. Communicating our purpose – Our messaging focused on the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ in an effort to emotionally connect with people and rally them to our cause.

2. Collaborating with Influencers – Creating third-party credibility through influential people, self-publishing online platforms, platforms & publications in the beauty & matrimonial industries.

3. Thinking beyond ads – Today consumers choose what content they engage with, therefore a strategic focus on creating engaging content and not just an ad.

4. Press exclusivity - Exclusive interaction opportunities for leading publications with key spokespersons from the company to encourage in-depth coverage and reach.

Timeline: 25th February to 7th March

The launch campaign reached out to 81% of the TG through TV, print & social in 10 languages, impacting a reach of 32 million women in one day.

It was featured news media like The Economic Times, The Times of India, ET Brand Equity, CNBC TV 18 etc.

Real-life ‘rejected brides’ were put on the cover of leading magazines Femina & Grazia.

Content partnership with digital platform ‘She The People’ got 1.6 million organic views.

‘Humans of Bombay’ ran a snowball campaign leading up to Women’s Day reaching 7 million.

Contextual messaging on the biggest matrimonial platform – Shaadi.com delivered 10 million impressions.

Users of Times Matrimonial were offered assistance to re-write their ads.

India’s No 1 tennis player, Sania Mirza, shared our content with her personal story. This was followed by other influencers across platforms resulting in 2 million organic views on day

In just one month, the campaign reached 75% of urban households:

· 2 million organic views on Instagram on day 1.

· Total 61 million views and a watch-time of 1.7 million hours ie. 192.7 years’ worth of content

· An earned PR value of USD 340,150.

The campaign garnered around 390 million cumulative impressions and a cumulative reach of 200 million across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

There was a 35% growth in new subscribers on Dove’s YouTube channel.

The content had high engagement with 1.15 million likes, shares & comments.

Post-campaign research showed that it was successful in changing audience’s perception of the brand.

· 80% agree ‘Dove Cares about women’

· 78% agree ‘Dove celebrates all kinds of women and their beauty’

· 75% agree ‘Dove leads the way in evolving conversations on beauty and self-esteem’

· 74% agree ‘Dove challenges negative beauty stereotypes and is redefining beauty’