← The Big Impression
The Big Impression
Unilever’s Ryu Yokoi on Dove’s sweet-smelling campaign
00:15:18
This week, we’re talking to Ryu Yokoi, chief media and marketing capabilities officer for North America at Unilever, about Dove’s “Hot Seats” campaign — a bold, culture-hacking activation that shows up where the sweat is real and the stakes are surprisingly high.
Loading summary
Transcript47 lines
- [00:00]
A
I'm Damien Fowler and welcome to this edition of the Big Impression. Today we're talking about how Unilever is breaking taboos, opening up new kinds of conversations, and connecting with consumers in some unexpected places. Our guest is Ryu Yokoi, chief media and marketing capabilities officer for North America at Unilever. We're going to dive into Dove's Hot seats campaign. It's a bold effort to make normalize conversations around full body freshness and engage people across both digital and real world spaces. We'll be talking about how this campaign's activating across concerts, social, retail, and digital platforms. So let's get into.
- [00:47]
B
Always starts with understanding our audience and also try to make our products really relevant and desirable in that context. And so Hot Seats originated from social listening within the community. And in particular, you know, one of our. Actually, her name is Dana Palucci, who leads our PR and influencer work on Dove for North America, is a big Charlie XCX fan. And she noted that the incredible Sweat tour, which was driving, you know, and kind of owning the culture last summer in the. In the Bratz summer that was.
- [01:21]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [01:22]
B
Unfortunately, the Sweat Tour smelled not great. And it turned out that Charlie and Troye Sivan were gonna be performing in Los Angeles. The week before the launch of our new whole body deodorant. We kind of did a takeover, putting our product in the bathrooms. We sent in creators to sort of experience what a show is like when you can make Sweat smell great. And the results were kind of magic because we got just unbelievable. The UVC on this and like the delight with folks attending a concert that actually smelled great was really fascinating, just fantastic response. And that week we had a really great launch of the product first hitting the digital shelves on Amazon and doing great.
- [02:03]
A
That sounded like a very fast activation for a campaign.
- [02:06]
B
It's happened like literally within 10 days.
- [02:09]
A
What was the war room like for that 10 days? How did you kind of like, you know, strategize to get that. That done?
- [02:15]
B
We always emphasize we want to build worlds instead of chasing moments. Right. So when you have an idea of what you're trying to build with the brand, how you show up, then it becomes a lot easier.
- [02:25]
A
And tell me a little bit about the tone. I mean, one of the. You mentioned the humor element of it. Why is that real talk, that humor so key to Dove campaigns?
- [02:35]
B
Well, I think there's a real authenticity that the brand has earned. You know, we say, oh, it's an authentic. It's only authentic if people believe it. The brand is really Comfortable in its own skin. We have a sharp understanding. You know, I think that goes beyond, like, a positioning statement to really understanding, you know, what this brand stands for, how it shows up in real life, what it would be like if you were to meet it and still be consistent in our building of what that brand means to people.
- [03:01]
A
Yeah, I mean, I've got to say, I live in New York, and I've noticed the campaign on the New York out of digital, out of home subway screens, and it just totally cuts through. Yeah. And I noticed it. And of course, I'm standing on a New York City platform in terrible heat.
- [03:16]
B
Right.
- [03:16]
A
Humidity, and everyone's sweating. It's like, a perfect placement.
- [03:20]
B
Well, I would say the, like, the subway work you've seen is really telegraphing that benefit. Right. If you're blessed to be next to somebody who's wearing Dove on the subway, you know, then, you know, wow, this is a good ride. We've sponsored Charlie's spring tour, and we're also showing up at other festivals like Lollapalooza, which have, you know, just provide another canvas for us to tell the story.
- [03:38]
A
Is it a case that once the campaign's out there in the wild, it builds its own momentum, or are you actively, like, trying to find new events, new, new. New points of pop culture? Kind of.
- [03:48]
B
That's exactly what we're trying to find. Right. Is, you know, we understand that if we're able to actually become part of the discourse, we're not just, like, you know, broadcasting ourselves in, but actively playing a role and helping people. And we had a similar case where, you know, the first weekend of Coachella, people were, again, lamenting, unfortunately, didn't smell great. Right. And in this case, somebody not usually posted, saying, well, I wish Dove would come and help here. We really had a lot of fun with it. We flew a plane over Coachella the second week saying, you know, the cavalry is coming. Help is on the way. We hear you need.
- [04:24]
A
That's good.
- [04:25]
B
Some help, and we're gonna be there. You know, we lined up folks around the entrances so that folks could kind of get freshened up on the way into the show or. Or get freshened up. And more than a thousand people took advantage of that.
- [04:35]
A
Now, I wanted to ask you about some of the key signals or early reads on, you know, the campaign. I'm sure you're playing. I'm sure you're paying close attention as you evaluate the impact. What do you look for on your dashboard, as it were?
- [04:48]
B
Right. So, you know, I think that first and Foremost, you're right, measurement is the most important. Yeah, but first and foremost, we did this the week before we were launching. So the first signal was, you know, did we turn well? And we did.
- [05:03]
A
Yeah.
- [05:03]
B
And, you know, the ramp on the product was, was really terrific. But I think, you know, to your point, it's really important no matter what the channel that you're playing in, you know, what are the leading indicators that we can correlate with performance? In this case, it was one where things happened so quickly and we knew there was literally nothing else happening when we did this, and so we were able to isolate that way.
- [05:23]
A
Are there other channels that, you know, you're kind of thinking about or could be targeted for the campaign?
- [05:31]
B
In principle, I want to be able to capture signal everywhere. For me, it's just around understanding, you know, where are people discussing whatever it is that we're trying to get into the discussion on and being authentic there. So for us, you know, Reddit is a channel we haven't used as much in the past. Certainly now I find it increasingly of relevance for us. So we're trying to build up a skill set there, especially given how important it is with training. AIs, right.
- [05:59]
A
What about audio? Is that.
- [06:01]
B
Absolutely, you know, so music, I would say again, you know, this is a. Was a highly. Before it became something that we were rolling out in, in real life at, you know, oh my goodness, the word is spectator events. Before it became something we were doing in real life as spectator events. It was a highly music driven campaign because we had decided to, you know, reboot this classic, you know, hip hop song from a few decades ago. And so that was. It was already sort of music oriented and had played that way. But yeah, so for us, it's exactly to your point. If we're talking about, you know, something that we're doing that's, you know, focusing on music or spectators, you know, obviously audio is going to have relevance. You know, where, where are their fans? Where are Charlie's fans actually discussing this? It turned out it was happening on Reddit. We go there. Where are they discussing their experience at the concerts? We were seeing a lot of chatter on TikTok around that and so we moved there. So we try to be nimble and agile and really be where the discourse is happening.
- [07:07]
A
You know, so we're going to zoom out a little bit and just look at the big picture of the landscape beyond the campaign. But as you think about where culture is heading, whether it's wellness, inclusivity or body confidence, what does the Campaign kind of tell us about where Unilever wants to go with its brands or its kind of message it wants to put out into the marketplace.
- [07:28]
B
We're all about building desire for our brands at scale. So we want to engage with communities wherever they are. It's about having a deep understanding of who our shopper is, what is driving desire for them, who influences them and how we can really engage with them and create a discourse where we can try to move towards many to many communication.
- [07:49]
A
One of the big challenges for marketers is balancing the long term brand building with the short term sales results. And do you think that there's a tension there right now in the marketplace that's very much dialed into performance?
- [08:01]
B
Listen, I think that it's really important that you have the right measurement in place and that you can understand both the short term and long term effects of the investments that you're making. That's something we really pride ourselves on. We want to be the most outcome oriented advertiser in the marketplace. But the other thing I would say is that more and more data signals and shopping shopability are making it so the, the funnel is collapsing and we're nearing places when it comes to, you know, qing and or having true shoppability in stream where even executions that in the past would have been considered the most upper funnel can actually drive a transaction in that moment. And I think a future that's really exciting.
- [08:41]
A
So finally we're going to get into some of these hot seat rapid fire questions here. Okay, so you ready?
- [08:46]
B
Yes. Let's go.
- [08:47]
A
All right. What's one thing you're obsessed with figuring out right now?
- [08:50]
B
We've been talking about how much we've built out resources, area and all of the interconnections that the data allows us to make. That implies, you know, campaigns that become more and more complex and much more complicated to just flight even. Right. And so one of the things that I'm obsessed with is how we simplify that there's so much change happening to accommodate all of this stuff. So, you know, really my big focus right now is on how we make working in this digital landscape easier for everybody involved in it. Because you know, the amount of choices that we have and the richest is never ending. And so, you know, just making that more sustainable.
- [09:32]
A
I love that. That's a great answer. What's missing from the media and marketing marketplace that you'd like to see from a Unilever standpoint?
- [09:41]
B
We have a few direct to consumer brands that are able to sort of track the media journey all the way through to conversion. But in the bulk of what we sell in traditional fast moving goods are moving through retail. So what's missing is some way to penetrate that clean from a data standpoint so that, you know, those of us brands that aren't doing DTC can, can have that all the way through. You know, we manage that well today with leading indicators and fast segments. But there's, I think, even more richness out there for us if we're able.
- [10:14]
A
To correct that, to bring this kind of full circle. Outside of cpg, is there a brand that you think is doing a great job connecting with culture right now?
- [10:23]
B
Yeah. So I would name to one that we really admire is Lego. I just see the way that they have both made their products both a vehicle for other brands to, to build their worlds while also building incredible worlds for themselves. So they've become kind of this almost currency within the way that so many other brands are trying to build their IP in the world. So whether it's like a formula one drop, a Star wars drop, a Harry Potter drop, these things each have so much hype around them and they've learned while doing that so that they're able to propel their own ip, which is really impressive to me. So the other, I would say we had a fantastic opportunity to work with this year is Crumbl Cookie. There were Dove soaps, deodorants, lotions that were fragranced, inspired by Crumbl flavors. And so in partnering them, we were able to build off of that and make our, you know, our soaps, our body washes, our deodorants. You know, one of the drops of the winter, we, you know, we struggled to keep it on shelves. So I'm a big admirer of the work they've done too.
- [11:28]
A
That sounds cool. And then final, final question here. So in Unilever kind of portfolio of brands, you Dove.
- [11:34]
B
Yeah.
- [11:34]
A
Ben and Jerry's, Hellman's. And the goal has always been to spark conversations. That's how we started this. This conversation, I guess.
- [11:42]
B
Yeah.
- [11:42]
A
I'm wondering if you could share a moment that kind of reminded you of the importance of that brand led cultural impact that you can have.
- [11:52]
B
Oh, wow. There's so many. But, you know, I'll give Dove so that we can show the other side of the coin. Because we were talking about a campaign, as I was saying, that, you know, shows the more playful side, the humorous side of the brand. But, you know, one of the areas the brand has focused over the past few years and, you know, we just celebrated 20 years of the DOVE self esteem program. And DOVE is one of the leading providers of self esteem education in the world. I think we're actually, we give the most annually self esteem workshops. And you know, one of the areas we focused recently is body confidence in sport. And so we partnered with Nike a few years ago to do research on the topic of young women in sport. And, you know, what the, you know, what we discovered along with them was that young women as they reach their teen years are dropping out of sports at an alarming rate relative to guys. And, you know, the chief reason is body confidence is feeling comfortable in your own skin, wearing the kinds of outfits that you're wearing when you're playing sports. And so we set out to, together with Nike, actually to develop a curriculum for coaches, which is the body confidence sport curriculum that literally teaches coaches how to talk to young women about their bodies in ways that are positive and not discouraging. And so, you know, we've now been leveraging almost Trojan Horse our participation across the big game, you know, our role as a sponsor of March Madness. We activated it last year with Emma Navarro at the US Open, really across major sports tempoles. We've just signed our first kit sponsorship of Gotham FC in the New York, New Jersey area of the Women's professional Soccer League. We're partnering with them also where they have a program called Keep her in the Game that's all around keeping young women in the New York, New Jersey area staying, you know, playing soccer. And so all of this focused again on trying to create a platform where we can talk about this and encourage people to go and learn about this curriculum. And the most encouraging thing, because that's a really long winded answer to your question. But what struck me was we were looking back at the research and, you know, our, our spots in the big game have generated really good discourse the past couple of years. Really positive response from folks who have been inspired not just by, you know, the ads themselves, but also, you know, I think this year we were one of maybe only a handful of brands that delivered a purpose message in the game. And the really encouraging is the group with whom it resonated the most was girl dads, right? Yeah, the very guys who are probably coaching on the weekend who probably need to know more about how to speak to these young women and keep them, you know, comfortable and inspired playing. So it's stuff like that that makes me see all the time, as I was saying earlier, you know, for us, it's around how can we show up? How can we add value, how can we actually help the community? And when we do that, then we build trust, and then we can have different kinds of dialogues with people and they really know who we are.
- [14:54]
A
And that's it for this edition of the Big Impression. This show is produced by Molten Heart. Our theme is by Loving Caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns. And remember, I think there's a real.
- [15:05]
B
Authenticity that the brand has earned. You know, we say, oh, it's an authentic. It's only authentic if people believe it.
- [15:12]
A
I'm Damian and we'll see you next time.