Dove’s Men+Care Advertisement Campaign
Want to sell body soap and other related products but struggling to find an angle that evokes emotions and sends some sort of message? Try fighting the patriarchy with Dove’s Men+Care advertising campaign, which guides expectant fathers on how to act when they learn that they are about to become fathers—that is, loving, caring, and, above all else, teary-eyed.
The Dove Men+Care campaign epitomizes the branded wisdom concept, Naomi Klein’s term intended to explain the intermingling of corporate compassion and its concern for social well-being. Fathers matter, and fathers who play active and loving roles in the lives of their children matter even more. None of this is disputable, though it is intriguing that Dove, best known for selling body soap, would care so much about fathers. Reasons must exist for why it does.
To start, promotion, as the campaign is not as much about soap as it is about fatherhood. A new definition of fatherhood at that, the “caring masculinity” that subverts the machismo that once led fathers to believe that showing emotion or vulnerability was a sign of weakness. Yet, viewers cannot divorce the new, caring masculinity from the soap, even though one has nothing to do with the other.
Unfortunately for Dove, selling soap on its own is boring. It is also difficult when most men do not care all that much about moisturizing skin and the quality of the hair products that they use. Better, then, to tie Dove to fatherhood, masculinity, and the patriarchy, as these concepts elicit emotion and nothing better to connect viewers to a campaign than emotion. Even if Dove cannot reach men, it can always reach their womenfolk, as they are surely concerned about moisturizing skin and, oh, defeating the patriarchy.
The result: sales.
Further, the advertisement slyly plays to consumer empowerment, positioning Dove at the center of broader social change. Imagine being an expectant mother worrying about whether the expectant father will play an active role in his child’s life. No need to worry with Dove, as it has helped redefine men with its #RealStrength campaign. Now, all men have to do is listen.
But what if men don’t listen? Or, what if they listen, but a soap commercial is just not enough to overturn outdated modes of masculinity? Well, at least Dove can sell some soap, which really is its purpose for existing. Moreover, it can always appeal to the idea that it tried, pointing to the time and resources that it invested in its campaign designed to bring consumer attention to issues like unequal power structures and male-female relations.
The brand voice in a non-commercial space, in other words, does not have to actually yield any real and tangible, though the campaign is not all that interested in results anyway. More important is displaying the compassion that humanizes the corporation and gives consumers the appearance that it is interested in doing more than fattening corporate coffers.
Plus, how would results even look? It is not like Dove is doing sophisticated social science, tracking changes in beliefs and attitudes regarding masculinity. Convenient for the company also, as it can take an important issue, neatly insert it into some bottle or cannister, brand it in the commercial space, and wash its collective hands, no pun intended.