Dove: Comedy Tour
PRCA Frontline Awards - Best Integrated Campaign
PRCA Frontline Awards - Best Consumer Campaign
Brief
Launch Dove’s new body wash range and create engagement and emotional relevance with women. Build on a clear insight into ‘real women’.
SolutionWe recommended that the product launch alone was not enough to generate media interest and that by supporting the launch with a through the line campaign, we would be able to generate a far more significant level of noise around the launch.
Research from the ad agency revealed that the shower is the place that women feel most uncomfortable with the reality of their bodies. Building on this insight, we came up with the creative concept of a female-only comedy tour where women could come together to laugh at themselves and celebrate their diversity. The concept was adopted by Dove across its full marketing mix as the theme behind the launch.
The three key stages to promoting the tour were - invitation (where consumers were made aware of forthcoming events via direct marketing, PR, on-pack, radio and TV), activation (the tour itself, where comedians including Arabella Weir and Julia Morris appeared at 10 comedy venues around the country over a 2 month period) and activation where we used PR to secure reviews about the events.
The whole launch was also supported by the Lexis team with a strong piece of news creation into the “The New Body Language” - the truth behind cankles and bingo wings (to name just two of the ‘newly defined parts’ of a woman’s body).
Results
Though the atmosphere and audience profile differed at each of the ten venues the response to the line-up was consistently positive (69% of questionnaire respondents felt the line up was “brilliant, hysterically funny”). 100% of questionnaire respondents said that they would recommend the tour to friends and family if it became an annual event.
Over 300 pairs of ticket were distributed via competitions in national and regional newspapers, magazines and radio.
Media attending events included Closer, GMTV, Daily Express, Daily Star and Woman’s Own, along with a number of key regional titles. Media hospitality not only raised the profile of the tour but created opportunities for show reviews, all of which were extremely favourable.
In terms of coverage success, the team here at Lexis generated 183 total pieces of PR coverage around the tour (of which 13 pieces of national coverage, 57 regionals, 6 women’s consumer titles, 5 advertorials, 18 competitions, 59 pieces of broadcast coverage (excluding Capital Radio promotions) and 25 pieces of online coverage. Total OTS = 86 million, with Dove branding in 100% of the coverage.
Overall the tour was deemed a huge success and was well received by both media and consumers. Creating the comedy tour as a platform was a great way of leveraging coverage for Dove Body Wash across a wide variety of media. It provided an opportunity to get samples into the hands of over 2,500 consumers who attended the events. What’s more, additional revenue was generated through ticket sales. In addition, the news creation was successful in creating further ‘talkability’ in the media for Dove Body Wash.