Dove campaign - lets praise and criticize:

[Dr. Taly Weiss]

Briliant it is.
But does make us behave like fools:
I need clever strategists to help me criticize Dove's campaign from consumer's point of view. Please comment on this one:

"The next Dove can easily be Coca Cola. Primary media channel: consumer consciousness. budget size = $0!"

posted on TrendsSpotting blog:

http://www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=232

[John Lambie]

I am wondering if the fuss about Dove is just a little too much navel gazing.
I have only ever received the viral link from fellow ad industry people, not from my friends outside the industry -- they couldn't give a gorilla's armpit for the spot.

I think 99% of the hype has been internal and amounts to a collective unburdening of guilt from all of us in the ad/marketing industry for being too fake, too vain, to vapid, too shallow etc. for too long.

Dove will soon go back to making ads with glowing, radiant, youthful, ethereal and unreal beauties.

[John Lambie]

The next Dove can easily be Coca-Cola???

Why not take it further: Marlboro?

Just spent an interesting evening with a Canadian chap on leave in Singapore.
His job? Eradicating the opium crop in Afghanistan.
His mission: Replacing a lucrative cash crop with a viable alternative.
His problem: There are no alternative crops that pay as well.
Tobacco has been mooted as a potential.
What's better: Nicotine or Smack?

Having spent some time working in Cambodia I know Big Tobacco is there in force -- growing and manufacturing.
They provide dirt poor farmers with a reliable and sustainable cash flow.
And they provide thousands of factory workers with jobs churning out coffin nails.

The alternatives:
1. Continue to grow rice at a much lower return
2. Work the fields for a pittance in the blazing sun

Seems to be a win for the average Cambodian.

So anyone can "spin" a story that taps the consumer consciousness: Yes, we give you cancer... but we no longer push our product at you: that's your choice... and look what we are doing for the Third World!

By comparison, Dove has a much easier song to sing.