Ogilvy, Dove miss chance to turn bad press into 'debate'.(Columns)

Advertising Age, May, 2008 by Bloom, Jonah

Byline: Jonah Bloom

The latest dove controversy epitomizes the ad industry's struggle to reinvent itself as a participant in an ongoing conversation rather than an old guy with a megaphone barking orders to people who no longer follow them.

Ogilvy's work for Unilever's Dove brand has been a poster child for this conversion. Here was a campaign that used traditional one-way stuff such as TV spots, banners, billboards and magazine ads but did it in a way that encouraged and facilitated debate everywhere from Oprah's studio to the smallest blog. Further, it embraced and employed consumers' parodies or reinterpretations of the ads and, in doing so, seemed to achieve the zenith of marketing: accepting that what the consumer thinks and says about your brand...

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