AdMiration feature: Dove's “The Code: A Dove Film”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we researched Dove’s “The Code: A Dove Film” ad. 

In recognition of the 20th anniversary of their Campaign for Real Beauty, Dove launched “The Code: A Dove Film” as part of a new campaign to show how they are still championing real beauty, with a commitment to never use AI to create or distort women’s images.

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to a message being typed on a white background under the Dove symbol. It says “By 2025, Artificial Intelligence is predicted to generate 90% of online content. All images generated for this film are actual results from an AI tool.” 

The audience then sees a young woman on her laptop asking an AI image generator to generate images of “a gorgeous woman,” “perfect skin” and “the most beautiful woman in the world,” which results in a montage of the unrealistic images of flawless young women. The ad cuts back to the initial white background with a new message: “For 20 years, Dove has been committed to Real Beauty. Today, this is how AI generates the images when we add ‘Dove.’” 

The original image generator prompts are then rewritten including “according to Dove Real Beauty Ad,” resulting in an array of images of diverse women including different age groups, races, hairstyles, etc. Returning to the white background, a question is posed: “What kind of beauty do we want AI to learn?” followed by a bigger montage of images and clips from Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign over the years. 

The ad concludes with the message: “Dove will never use AI to create or distort women’s images” inviting the audience to learn more on the Dove website and encouraging them to #KeepBeautyReal. 

3 facts

• The ad scores in the top 5% of all US ads in potential to drive immediate sales and in potential to build brand equity and generate long-term sales. 

• It is extremely current and relatable, eliciting a strong emotional reaction from the viewer, particularly women, dominated by love.

• While highly emotional, the ad is also very successful in making people feel more positively about the Dove brand and more likely to choose it the next time they are shopping for body care products. 

2 learnings

• Showcasing how your brand addresses real-time consumer concerns can be highly impactful in driving emotional engagement, particularly when these concerns link well to a brand truth.

• The right music can make a meaningful difference to the impact of an ad, enhancing the story arc and key moments to drive a powerful emotional response. Music should be used intentionally and seen as integral to ad development, not an afterthought.

1 reflection

Are you up to date with how your initial consumer insight (which fuels your brand message) has been impacted over time? External influences, such as technology, political changes, pandemics and recessions will impact people’s attitudes and behaviors. Staying on top of the nuances of how insights evolve ensures that the way you express your message is as relatable as it can be.

The Dove Real Beauty campaign has been around for 20 years with the first iteration launched in 2004. It stemmed from an insight from a research piece titled “The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report,” where it was found that only 2% of women globally consider themselves to be beautiful. The brand took that insight and turned it into a mission to increase women’s self-esteem worldwide and the Real Beauty campaign was born. 

In the last 20 years, Dove has released multiple iterations of the campaign, always keeping up-to-date with external factors that impact the way women perceive beauty. In a recent study Dove found that while beauty ideals have evolved to be more inclusive, two-thirds of women feel like they are expected to be more physically attractive than their mother’s generation was and almost 9 in 10 say they have been exposed to harmful beauty content online. They also found that a third of women feel pressure to alter their appearance based on what they see online. Beyond this, a high proportion of girls in the US claimed to feel “empowered” by the ability to create different versions of themselves using AI tools.

These insights were the key driver for the creative idea behind this campaign, which wouldn’t have been possible without Dove’s consistency over the years.

The ad scores in the top 5% of all US ads in potential to drive immediate sales (Sales Impact: 98) and potential to drive brand equity and long-term sales (Brand Impact: 95). 

Women absolutely love the ad, a primary driver of the strong outperforming scores throughout; however, the ad still sits among the top 10-15% of ads for men out of all of those tested in the US.

It’s a truly one of a kind ad (Ad distinctiveness: 4.3 vs 3.8 norm) that captures the audience’s attention (Claimed attention: 4.2 vs 3.9 norm) and really sets the brand apart from others in the category (Brand distinctiveness: 4.1 vs 3.7 norm). 

And 77% of the audience recognized it was an ad for Dove and half said it could have only been for this brand, significantly outperforming the average US ad on uniqueness of brand impressions (4.2 vs 3.9 norm).

Despite being two minutes long, the ad captivates the audience and elicits an emotional reaction that is significantly higher than the norm for US ads (Overall emotion: 67 vs 55 norm). The strongest emotion felt by the audience is love with 44% of viewers feeling it compared to a 29% average for a US ad. Women were the primary drivers of the love emotion, and the younger the female viewer, the more love was felt towards the ad. 

Perhaps the ad resonated most with younger women as they are the ones who have likely been most impacted by the influence of technology on the standards of beauty. Women between the ages of 18 to 34 have grown up with the likes of Photoshop, social media, etc. impacting their view on beauty standards from a very young age. That said, it makes sense that a campaign like this one from Dove would drive a particularly strong reaction from this group.

People found the ad extremely relatable, current and real (Relevance: 4.0 vs 3.6 norm). They loved the diverse array of women the ad portrayed and how beauty is conveyed in multiple ways. They also enjoyed how fitting the music choice was for the message the ad was trying to convey.  

Here’s what some respondents liked most about the ad: 

• "I liked the music, the statement that Dove will always use natural women, and most of all the many sizes, shapes, ages, and colors of all the women in the ad."

• "The realness of everything. That beauty is on the inside and shown on the outside. Comes in all shapes and sizes."

• "The music was perfect, very touching and pleasant. Every single woman was beautiful. And realistic. I can relate completely to feeling imperfect like I'm not pretty enough."

• "I like that they stand up against and stand out from what society tries to make us think is beautiful. I love that they make everyone believe they are beautiful in their own skin."

• "I liked that the ad showed that all women are beautiful and that Dove will only use real women in its ads."

Beyond being extremely powerful emotionally, the ad also makes viewers feel more positively about Dove (Brand appeal: 4.2 vs 3.9 norm) and be more likely to choose the brand the next time they are shopping for body care products (Purchase uplift: 26% vs 19% norm). 

This was another amazing ad from Dove, a brand that continues to bring fresh consistency to a campaign that has positively impacted people world-wide for 20 years. 

What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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