We architected a global communication strategy to launch the campaign with minimal paid media support. The core of our strategy was to position the film as a social experiment and thus ignite a conversation around women’s self-perception.

Only 4% of women believe they’re beautiful. How could we prove to the other 96% that they are more beautiful than they think?

Our idea was to film an experiment: We invited an FBI-trained sketch artist to draw a woman’s portrait first according to her own self-description, then according to a strangers’ description of her. Throughout, the artist never laid eyes on the women themselves. To close, we held an exhibition comparing the sketches. Women admitted that portraits based on the strangers’ description were more beautiful, happier and more accurate than the portrait based on their own description.

The film provided striking proof that women are more beautiful than they think.

We then architected an ambitious, global PR strategy to launch the Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign with minimal paid media support. The core of our strategy was to position the film as a social experiment and thus ignite a conversation around self-perception. We partnered with the forensic artist and two of the real women portrayed in the film to tell their personal story through national media opportunities.

Seven days in, the conversation has exploded in mainstream media:

- 2.9 billion media impressions (all original stories)

- Segments on The Today show, Good Morning America, NBC news

- Articles in the New York Times,The Guardian, Forbes.com, The Telegraph, Huffington Post

- 118.409 mentions across 6519 sites with a combined readership of 1.6 billion

· 43.4 million youtube views

· 180 million content views

· Viewed by 1 in 10 Facebook users

· 2nd most viewed video online globally

· The most shared article in the history of mashable.com

· 1.9 million aggregate shares on Facebook

· 208 million Twitter impressions

· 1 million Likes

· 19,153 uses of the hashtag #wearebeautiful

To spread the campaign we used the most talkative, contagious, sharable, viral medium out there: women themselves. To get women talking we combined three core elements: a viral video, a mass PR campaign and the wildfire of social media.

We combined a social experiement, with heavweight global broadcasters, newspaper mouthpieces coupled with the wild fire of social media.

Women’s self-perception became the content of conversations on mainstream media, blogs and social networks:

Major US, UK and Australia broadcast networks cover

Featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, NBC news.

14 CNN and HLN segments.

4 New York Times feature stories

2 Wall Street Journal online stories

Articles in The Independent, The Guardian and The Telegraph.

6 Huffington post articles

Leading millions of women to get involved in the Dove conversation

4th most shared ad of all time on Youtube with 98% Likes

3.1 million aggregate shares on Facebook

611.238 new Dove fans

240 Million Twitter impressions

Responsible for 90% of video content shares within its peer group category.

CTR 2.56% vs industry banner standards of 0.05%

Blogs:

1663 posts

Brand’s social activity:

All of which impacted the brand’s relationship with consumers:

· 14368% increase on daily rate of tweets about the brand

· 1652% increase in Dove Channel subscribers

· 4.3 million clicks through to the Dove site

· Brand search volumes online increased up to 5 times across markets.

· Brand passion went up over 1000%

· Dove advocates increased activity by 350%