How Dove Uses Feel-Good Marketing
What is feel-good advertising?
Feel-good advertising is marketing to evoke a good feeling or emotional response from the viewer. Businesses harness the power of positivity and joy to build brand awareness and grow their business.
The goals of feel-good advertising are usually based on:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Encouraging positive interactions with your brand
- Boosting brand loyalty
Examples of feel-good marketing campaigns
Dove is a brand that promotes beauty outside and in. Their Real Beauty campaign set out to challenge negative stereotypes about body image and put more “real women” in their marketing. This helped women of all backgrounds, shapes, and sizes feel good about themselves and ultimately buy more Dove products. This campaign earned a spot in the top 5 advertising campaigns of the 21st century by AdAge.
For International Women’s Day in 2022, they launched their #BeautyBias campaign. This encouraged women to use the branded hashtag and talk about how beauty bias affects their life. While this may not be what you’d consider a “feel-good” campaign, it still promotes a much-needed public dialogue and conversation. It takes a positive spin on gender bias, and we expect it to be a successful branding and awareness campaign.
Vocabulary:
evoke – to cause or bring a specific feeling, memory, or image into a person’s mind, “The smell of fresh pine trees can evoke happy memories of winter holidays.”
emotional response – a reaction that is guided or caused by deep feelings like happiness, sadness, or anger, “The sad movie caused a strong emotional response from the audience.”
harness – to control and use the natural power of something to achieve a specific goal or result, “The company builds large windmills to harness the energy of the wind.”
brand awareness – how familiar people are with a specific company, its name, and its products, “Giving away free t-shirts at the concert helped the small shop increase its brand awareness.”
interactions – acts of communicating, working, or spending time directly with someone or something, “The science museum features fun games to encourage interactions between visitors.”
Boosting – raising, increasing, or improving something to make it better or higher, “Eating fruit in the morning is a great way of boosting your daily energy levels.”
brand loyalty – a customer’s habit of always buying products from the same company because they trust it completely, “Her brand loyalty means she will only ever buy smartphones made by Apple.”
promotes – encourages people to support, like, accept, or use something, “The teacher always promotes kindness and sharing in the classroom.”
stereotypes – fixed, simple, and often unfair ideas that people have about what a specific group of people is like, “The movie tried to break common stereotypes about teenagers by showing them working hard.”
backgrounds – the past experiences, culture, education, and family histories that shape who people are, “The students in our international class come from many different backgrounds.”
ultimately – in the end, or finally after a series of events, challenges, or thoughts, “He looked at five different cars and ultimately chose the blue one.”
earned a spot – (idiom) achieved or won a deserved position or place in a list, team, or ranking due to hard work or success, “Her excellent test scores earned her a spot at the top university.”
campaigns – planned series of actions, advertisements, or events designed to achieve a specific business or political goal, “The charity ran several successful campaigns to raise money for homeless animals.”
bias – an unfair feeling of liking or disliking a specific person, group, or idea more than another, “The referee showed a clear bias toward the home team during the soccer match.”
dialogue – a formal, serious, and honest conversation between people or groups to share ideas or solve a problem, “The two countries started a friendly dialogue to discuss new trade rules.”
positive spin – (idiom) a way of describing or presenting a difficult or negative situation so that it looks good, attractive, or hopeful to others, “The manager put a positive spin on the delayed project by calling it a great chance to do extra research.”
gender bias – unfair treatment, judgment, or prejudice toward a person simply because of their sex or gender, “The company made strict new hiring rules to completely prevent gender bias.”