Ad-it Wiki

Owing to the fact that my blog deals with advertising in India and America, I had a tough time searching for a wiki article that dealt with a brand that had its presence in both the countries. While going through several ads, I came across the 'Dove - Real Beauty Sketches' ad released on April 14, 2013. Dove is an international brand owned and marketed by Unilever in India as well as in America.

Original Dove Wiki Article

Following is the link to the Ad, the making and the rest of which I have added to the wikipedia page of the ad. I have also included the number of languages it was released in, the awards and Social Media presence it received.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches Ad 

Below is the part from Wikipedia, I have chosen to edit—

Background (Original)

Inspired by market research that suggested only 4% of women describe themselves as beautiful, Unilever's Dove brand has been conducting a marketing campaign called Dove Campaign for Real Beauty that aims to celebrate women's natural beauty since 2005. According to Anselmo Ramos, creative director of Ogilvy & Mather, and head of the Real Beauty Sketches project, the goal of the Real Beauty Campaign is to find a way to convince the other 96% they are also beautiful. Several ideas to achieve this aim were suggested, and it was decided that an unscripted experiment would be the best way to reach women. The idea of hiring a forensic sketch artist stood out, but Ramos was not sure it would work. "With Real Beauty Sketches, we thought that women would probably describe themselves in a more negative way than strangers. But it was just a guess really. It could go totally wrong." The idea was pitched to Dove with the caveat that it might not work. Gil Zamora, an FBI-trained forensics artist with over 3,000 criminal sketches under his belt was hired through Unilever's U.K. office and Ogilvy Brazil to interview and draw seven different women—two sketches of each. According to Ramos, Zamora was "really excited about the project" and was crucial to its success. Ogilvy & Mather selected two groups of women - those being sketched and those providing a second description of them - from diverse backgrounds through a normal casting process. John X. Carey from Paranoid US was chosen to direct. 

Edited Version 

Inspired by market research that suggested only 4% of women describe themselves as beautiful and around 54% believe that when it comes to how they look, they are their own worst beauty critic, Unilever's Dove brand has been conducting a marketing campaign called Dove Campaign for Real Beauty that aims to celebrate women's natural beauty since 2005. According to Anselmo Ramos, creative director of Ogilvy & Mather, and head of the Real Beauty Sketches project, the goal of the Real Beauty Campaign is to find a way to convince the other 96% they are also beautiful. Several ideas to achieve this aim were suggested, and it was decided that an unscripted experiment would be the best way to reach women. The idea of hiring a forensic sketch artist stood out, but Ramos was not sure it would work. "With Real Beauty Sketches, we thought that women would probably describe themselves in a more negative way than strangers. But it was just a guess really. It could go totally wrong." The idea was pitched to Dove with the caveat that it might not work. Dove agreed and Ogilvy & Mather hired FBI-trained sketch artist Gil Zamora after "extensive research" because of his experience (3,000+ criminal sketches) and intimate style. According to Ramos, Zamora was "really excited about the project" and was crucial to its success. Ogilvy & Mather selected two groups of women - those being sketched and those providing a second description of them - from diverse backgrounds through a normal casting process. John X. Carey from Paranoid US was chosen to direct. A three-minute long video was launched in four key markets, U.S., Canada, Brazil and Australia, and was then produced and uploaded in 25 languages to 46 Dove YouTube channels across remaining countries. The video was launched using TrueView in-stream, TrueView in-search, YouTube homepage masthead, and search ads globally. Audience participation via YouTube brand channels, YouTube video responses, Google+ Hangouts, and a Google+ page was encouraged. 

Reaction (Original)

The films were released on April 14, 2013 and quickly generated a strong reaction, going viral within days. By April 18, the 3-minute version had been downloaded 7.5 million times, while the 6-minute version had been viewed more than 900,000 times. By April 21, the videos had more than 15 million views between them. On Mashable, an article about the campaign was shared more than 500,000 times in 24 hours. The video was among Buzzfeed's top 10 items on April 18. According to AdAge, the campaign generated just under 30 million views and 660,000 Facebook shares during its first ten days.Those numbers allowed the video to more than double up on its nearest competition in the publication's week survey of viral video advertisement interest. As of April 27, 2013, the 3-minute video had been viewed 30.6 million times; user feedback on YouTube was 97.6% positive (98,000 likes and 2,200 dislikes).

Edited Version

The films were released on April 14, 2013 and quickly generated a strong reaction, going viral within days. By April 18, the 3-minute version had been downloaded 7.5 million times, while the 6-minute version had been viewed more than 900,000 times. By April 21, the videos had more than 15 million views between them. On Mashable, an article about the campaign was shared more than 500,000 times in 24 hours.[2] The video was among Buzzfeed's top 10 items on April 18.[2] According to AdAge, the campaign generated just under 30 million views and 660,000 Facebook shares during its first ten days. Those numbers allowed the video to more than double up on its nearest competition in the publication's week survey of viral video advertisement interest. As of April 27, 2013, the 3-minute video had been viewed 30.6 million times; user feedback on YouTube was 97.6% positive (98,000 likes and 2,200 dislikes). By June 2013, the video received 163 million global views, topped Cannes YouTube Ads leader board and won the Titanium Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Overall it achieved 4.6 billion media impressions and 275,000 followers on Google+. Over 15 video parodies of the ad have been created so far. The campaign garnered over 4.6 billion Public Relations and blogger media impressions by June 2013. 

Instead of altering the content of the Wikipedia, I have added a few facts that were not mentioned on the Dove Real Beauty Wikipedia page. The ad campaign was such a success that I thought it was important for people interested in advertising to know as many facts as possible about the ad.