When Consumers Realize Your Company Has No Soul

There is something to be said for brands that promote virtuous messages. Such is the case with Dove, whose "Real Beauty" campaign encouraged women around the world to accept the beauty of the individual, no matter what society's concept of beauty may be.



Dove followed up this campaign with the engrossing "Evolution" piece, a viral video that showed a beauty model transforming from a natural, makeup-less state to an over mascaraed, runway fashion queen.



Another one of Unilever's lead brands is Axe (known as Lynx in Europe), and Axe has quite a different consumer segment and message. As you're probably aware, Axe Body Spray positions itself as a pheromone for the romantically inclined young male audience. Here's one of their ads (a European Lynx ad to be specific), which, on its own, is also a great creative execution.



All of the attached videos are great pieces when viewed as communications from one brand. However, consumers have begun to peel away from the Dove only messages and view the campaign in the continuum of other Unilever brands. Unilever's envelope pushing campaigns for Axe/Lynx are now being viewed as exactly the type of exploitation that the Dove points out in its new "Onslaught" web film.



This hypocrisy has been picked up as of late in the media, and even non-activist consumers are becoming aware of these two contrasting brands. There are several great lessons to be learned from this situation, which is far from over.

Great (and expensive) brand building run the risk of becoming undone by another brand (or corporate scandal for that matter) under a corporate umbrella, no matter how much marketers try to understate a corporate moniker.

With the information omnipresence revolution we're all taking part of, companies truly need to determine their individual corporate souls. The risk, as we're seeing played out here, is that consumers become disgusted with such brand hypocrisy, realize that your company is just there to make money, and abandon your brands.