Axe the Evolution
November 2, 2007 by Peter Childs
Unilever is a huge company with many impressive brands under its control.
It’s got a firm grasp of alternative and interactive marketing techniques – in fact its Dove brand is currently basking in the limelight for its Evolution and Onslaught campaigns for Real Beauty.
What’s interesting is those same techniques are being applied to another Unilever brand – Axe – whose brand message couldn’t be more opposed to the Dove message as the attached video shows.
Don’t get me wrong Unilever is a superb marketer. Its products have such strong brand identity, and that their marketing efforts so in tune with the intended market that they can create new categories as they did with Axe, or redefine them as they did with Dove.
What is going to be interesting to see how consumers react to the cognitive dissonance between the brand messages!
My guess is that Dove will lose some of its luster – and that Unilever will learn that interactive marketing cuts across brands, and therefore has to me managed with that in mind.
2 Responses to “Axe the Evolution”
Pete, I linked to this and tried to send a trackback, but Haloscan failed on it. Here’s the post.
[...] across brands. Just look at what is happening with Unilever over its AXE and Dove brands. (here and [...]