Dove real beauty: be the cause
You are probably familiar with the Dove Real Beauty campaign. The campaign is best known for its real-women models and more recently a 75-second viral film showing the transformation (they say "evolution") of an average looking woman into a supermodel.
The effort gave Dove an opportunity to position itself as selling more than soap; they now give permission for women to feel good about themselves and to look and act beautifully, however they choose to define it. More importantly, Dove is teaching 8-12-year-old girls about the importance of identifying beauty within themselves, focusing on the pre-teen years before the peer pressure to be like the mythical supermodel drives them to unhealthy habits.
On the functional end, the campaign for Real Beauty website employs all of the right strategies and tactics. It has a compelling call-to-action, it positions the educational resources on the site as the main focus, and it's easy to send the website to a friend.
More than a year after it launched, the site continues to be updated, in part by soliciting recommendations for campaigns from the audience. And, there are discussion forums and action kits where parents and kids can discuss their anxieties and find peers who share the same feelings.
This site has generated major buzz, and deservedly so. It is authentic, genuine and true to the Dove brand, while also tackling a serious issue with confidence and appropriateness. In short, Dove is sending an important message to young women and backing it up with meaningful support. They will sell more product as a result of this campaign, but that's not all they accomplished. Dove also made it clear to the user what is most important about their campaign effort: them.