Insight and Idea

In celebration of Dove’s 60 years of “Real Beauty,” the brand wanted to refresh; in women’s minds, Dove’s brand pledge of portraying women as they are in reality and to help girls build positive body confidence and self-esteem.

The Challenge

The distinct pressure to be-your-best-self in social, forces everyone from Kim Kardashian to your BFF to just post the ‘best’ in their life, and not real life. The Snapchat lens is the digital makeup of the young target consumers, and the beauty lens is the most used one of them all, allowing Snapchatters to blur out their imperfections creating a new face for them.

Strategy and Execution

Dove Canada wanted Canadian women to embrace their real beauty. To do just that, the brand hacked one of Snapchat’s most popular lenses – the “beauty lens.”

For 24-hours, users who interacted with the lens were presented with a Dove “Real Beauty” message: “Let Real Beauty Shine.” After selecting the beauty lens, a Dove “Real Beauty” banner would drop down and the beauty lens was no longer applied to one’s selfie. A subtle transition gave selfie-lovers the chance to pause for thought, and reflect on their own beauty, no filter necessary.

Agency Mindshare Canada not only had to work hard to convince Snapchat to hack and disable its most used product, but also brought on board influencers who could help contemporize the agency’s message for the brand. In Snapchat and Instagram, the team had real women show their real beauty sans lenses and encourage their followers to do the same.

Dove was the first brand to ever HACK the beauty lens and Snapchatters engaged in droves.

The Results

In 24 hours, the Dove “Let Real Beauty Shine” lens had more than four million plays – 2.4 times more plays than the average lens. More than 2.2 million Snapchatters played, used or viewed the lens and this selfie-loving target played with the lens for more than 17 seconds for an unbelievable total of 644,000 minutes of engagement. This campaign garnered more than 1.7 million impressions through direct Snapchat messages and stories.

The best marketing acknowledges content with relevance and it often considers the line between the user and the product. Hacking Snapchat’s beauty lens to evolve Dove’s “Real Beauty” brand pledge was a success – the perfect marriage between product and platform.

And while the beauty lens is back to normal, the brand will continue to evolve to be the champion of REAL beauty.