User:GeeJo/Sandbox/Onslaught (Dove)

Onslaught is an online advertising campaign created by Unilever in 2006 to promote the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. It is the third such piece to be released, following Daughters and Evolution. As with the previous spots, the 80-second spot was managed by advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather and was directed by Tim Piper. Onslaught was uploaded concurrently with Amy, another Dove advertisement.

Background
Main: Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

Production
Filming was done in Miami by Worldwide Productions Still photographs (billboards) done in Toronto by Steam. Posters are fake. Each presenter was greenscreened saying the entire sentence, one frame taken from each. Surgery = stock photography, manipulated to appear animated. Music track chosen during editing, most expensive part of piece.

Roughly 300 images were cut in rapid succession: typical fashion ads, MTV dancers and TV ads flash by first, followed by the results of the pressure girls feel – the obsession with diet, eating disorders and plastic surgery. It ends with a tagline telling mothers to talk to their daughters before the beauty industry does. - DAD - http://awards.dandad.org/2008/search/result/15703?q=onslaught

"Here it comes" from U.K. group Simian's "La Breeze," - Masso - http://www.massogroup.com/cms/content/view/4013/295/lang,vn/

Release and reception
Unilever will unleash "Onslaught" on YouTube this Monday (10/11/2007) - MP - https://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=68188

Shown early to an Advertising Week conference on so-called "Passionistas" - MP

Dove onslaught viral video clocks up a cool 75,000+ views on YouTube in one day. - http://www.cannesfringe.com/2007/10/02/dove-onslaught-viral-video/

more than one million people have viewed the latest video, “OnSlaught,” on YouTube since it appeared in late 2007. - http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2008/narrative_special_advertising.php?media=13

As of 5 p.m. today, about 32 hours after the video was first posted in the U.K., Onslaught had generated more than 100,000 views on YouTube, placing it among the top 16 overall for the day, and the most daily blog mentions Dove has gotten since "Evolution," according to Nielsen BuzzMetrics' BlogPulse. - Masso

Millward brown unsure of how it would be received - http://www.mb-blog.com/index.php/2007/10/04/doves-online-video-onslaught-will-it-divide-or-conquer

"Onslaught" generated considerable coverage on NBC's "Today Show, - Masso

600,000 viewings in its first week in release. - Huff - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/polly-labarre/dont-buy-it_b_69359.html

With almost 150 million media impressions, the ad generated discussion among bloggers and journalists. It was fourth on Time’s top ten of 2007, among Newsweek’s best TV ads of the year (despite never running on TV) and voted number one ad of the year in USA Today’s readers’ poll. - DAD

Best of 2007 by Boards magazine - http://www.boardsmag.com/articles/online/20071218/bestof07.html

Winner of D&AD Award - DAD

Damn, if it just weren't for the nagging hypocrisy of it all. - http://adage.com/adreview/post?article_id=120975

More hypocrisy - huff

Mashup of Axe and Dove campaigns received 98,000 views - http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=79758

More on Mashup - http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/news/doveviral.htm

Greenpeace campaign success - http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/asia-pacific/dove-palmoil-action

They'd previously done other parody campaigns - http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/04/greenpeace-aims.html

Other spoofs: Terres de Hommes - http://adsoftheworld.com/forum/dungeon/dove_onslaught_spoof_superhero_tdh

Onslaught" also accomplished what four years of racy Axe ads hadn't -- getting the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood to demand Unilever stop running Axe ads. While the group already was aware of Axe and of Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, the specifics of the "Onslaught" push set it off. "The whole idea of 'Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does' certainly motivated us to do a campaign around this," said a spokesman for the group. "Unilever is the beauty industry. To point fingers at other brands and at the same time be taking advantage of the same horrific marketing other companies are doing is incredibly hypocritical." - http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/news/doveviral.htm

More on backlash - http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/11/05/a_companys_ugly_contradiction/

Unilever response: Unilever spokesperson Trevor Gorin told CosmeticsDesign.com: "We have a broad portfolio of brands and clearly these brands must appeal to customers' needs and desires which are often very different." He said the Axe body spray is aimed at a different group to the Dove products and so the marketing differs accordingly. "When you look at the Axe advert, it is clearly exaggerated and done with humor and irony," added Gorin. "It has to be slightly edgy to appeal to young men."- http://www.cosmeticsdesign.com/Products-Markets/Unilever-denies-exploitative-marketing-accusations

was named the top Canadian ad of 2007 by local fish wrap the Toronto Star and also earned the number 5 most watched spot on Adcritic last year. - http://creativity-online.com/news/janet-kestin-nancy-vonk-tim-piper/125191