Dove For Men. Creative Brief

 Hello again,

Today I would like to look at the success of Dove, and more specifically Dove for Men. How did a company that was so focused on women's hygiene products change their image to serve men's needs too?

That's where the advertising and marketing teams come in.        
                                                                                                           
By using an advertising agency, Dove created an amazing advertising campaign that changed how the average consumer viewed the Dove Brand. The advertising agency did this by starting off with a great creative brief.

A creative brief is created by the account planner, it is a simple statement that inspires the creative team and portrays the purpose of advertising campaign. A successful brief brings together inspiration and focus. Some things to consider defining a creative brief:

1) "The bridge between strategy and execution" - Henrik Habberstad

2) "Creative without strategy is called art. Creative with strategy is called advertising" - Jef Richards, Courtesy of Anis Khan

So although I did not find the exact Dove for Men's creative brief, I thought it would be fun to imagine what creative briefs they pitched to the creative team. To start we must think of the problem or mission at hand:

                         

Mission: How do we make Dove appeal to Men?

To show how they created the creative brief, I will show some bad examples and finally a good example.

Bad Creative Brief: Create an ad with a handsome man using our products in the shower

-This is a bad creative brief, because it does not inspire the team and it also limits their creativity by making them work within the parameters.

Better Creative Brief: Create an ad showing the benefits of our new products
-This is better because it does not limit the creative team, but again it does not inspire the team and there is no focus for the creative team to go off.

Best: Create a television ad demonstrating the numerous benefits of this ground-breaking new product line that equips your everyday average man with the confidence he needs to take on the World.

-This is the best creative brief because it has inspiration to help your everyday average man take on the World. It also has some focus with the television act and emphasizing benefits, but not too much like the first one limiting the ad to the bathroom.

Overall, a great creative brief is all about communication from the account planner to the creative team. Each side must have respect for the other, and work together to create a great advertising campaign. All of these briefs were simply things I imagined, but I do believe they pitched something similar to these when they started the campaign.

Dove for Men has been a great success, and in a lot of ways I would credit it to the advertising team. That's all I have for now, but I look forward to writing more later.

-Andrew

Sources:

http://www.unilever.ca/brands/personalcarebrands/Dove_mencare.aspx

Professor Jane Machin - Powerpoints