Unilever’s Ryu Yokoi on Dove’s sweet-smelling campaign

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. 

 

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler, and welcome to this edition of The Big Impression. Today we are 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 DO'S Hot Seats campaign. It's a bold effort to 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 it.

Ryu Yokoi (00:46):

It always starts with understanding our audience and also try to make our products really relevant and desirable in that context. And so the hot seats are originated from social listening within the community. And in particular, one of our, actually her name's Dana Pucci, 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 and kind of owning the culture last summer in the brat summer, that was

(01:21):

Unfortunately the Sweat tour smelled not great. And it turned out that Charlie and Troy Sivan were going to be performing in Los Angeles the week before the launch of our new whole body deodorant. We kind 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 sweats smell great. And the results were kind of magic because we got just unbelievable. The UVC on this and 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 shells on Amazon and doing great.

Damian Fowler (02:02):

That sounded like a very fast activation for a campaign.

Ryu Yokoi (02:06):

It happened literally within 10 days.

Damian Fowler (02:08):

What was the war room like for that 10 days? How did you strategize to get that done?

Ryu Yokoi (02:14):

We always emphasize we want to build worlds instead of chasing moments. 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.

Damian Fowler (02:25):

And tell me a little bit about the tone. I mean, one of you mentioned the humor element of it. Why is that real talk, that humor so key to Dove campaigns?

Ryu Yokoi (02:34):

Well, I think there's a real authenticity that the brand has earned. 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. I think that goes beyond a positioning statement to really understanding 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 that brand means to people.

Damian Fowler (03:00):

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 thr