Alessandro Manfredi’s Post

Even the most beautiful love stories come to an end. A few months ago, I have decided to leave Unilever and the past few days were my last as the leader of the Dove brand. I am leaving with a deep feeling of Pride and Gratitude.   PRIDE... After helping start the Real Beauty movement 20 years ago, with the launch of #Campaignforrealbeauty, I had the privilege to lead a brand that has become the #1 provider of body confidence education in the world, with 114mn children educated… tripling its business to a 6Bn Euro iconic brand. We never stopped growing since those days in 2004 and have kept accelerating; hitting our best result in more than a decade in ‘23 and now carrying an even greater impetus in ’24. This allowed us to demonstrate that Social impact, when fully embedded into a business, not only does not trade off with Profit, but is a phenomenal driver of growth. And those who know me well, know how much of an obsession this has always been for me: to keep demonstrating that there is a ‘better’ way of doing business.   GRATITUDE… Ending my adventure with the 20 years anniversary of Real Beauty is such a beautiful closure of a circle. I joined Unilever more than two decades ago attracted by three things. The humanity of its leadership, the humanity of its unique marketing philosophy, deeply rooted in building emotional bonds with people, and the humanity of its purpose. Throughout my career within Unilever, I was allowed to cultivate these incredible assets and inject them into the brands I was lucky to work on, which makes me forever grateful to this company. I will always carry the torch of this humanity, wherever I go, whatever I do next.   Huge thank you to all my beloved teachers and mentors for their trust and wisdom, my wonderful teams, and lifelong partners for sharing with me their passion, steady commitment to our brand’s mission and our common ’allergy to second best’. Finally, thanks to all those precious friends I met during this beautiful chapter of my life.   Forever. #LetsChangeBeauty 💙 💙     #Ogilvy #Edelman

Very proud of Unilever being named Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year 2024.   And very proud of Dove’s contribution to creativity, with 38 Lions only in the last 3 years.   Congratulations to all Unilever teams, agencies, and partners. Creativity is a critical enabler to build emotional connections, drive ROI and – when necessary – drive social change.   If you want to know more: https://lnkd.in/eBs9XWXi   #UniquelyUnilever #CannesLions2024 #LetsChangeBeauty #Dove #RealBeauty #DoveSelfEsteemProject 

What kind of beauty do we want AI to learn? As we enter the 20th year of the Campaign for Real Beauty, @Dove’s work is not done yet – from our biggest ever study of beauty around the world, we know that women and girls still feel huge pressure to be a certain type of beautiful. And that one of the biggest threats to the representation of real beauty is AI, which is predicted to be 90% of the content online by 2025. AI generated content is perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards and lacks representation; even when women and girls know the images, they see are fake or AI-generated, still 1 in 3 feel pressure to alter their appearance when exposed to these visual representations. In Dove’s new campaign, #TheCode, we reflect on the fact that AI, like any new technology, has the power to become whatever we want it to be, it’s up to us. AI can mirror the biases society has towards women’s representation, but it also can learn to become more diverse and inclusive, and that’s what we see in the film.   The work that Dove began 20 years ago is more important than ever. That’s why today, Dove renews its vows by committing to #Keepbeautyreal, by never using AI to create or distort women’s images in our ads. And we are taking action to equip people, creators and brands using AI, to make the most of it when exploring and generating Real beauty. We’ve developed the #RealBeautyPromptPlaybook, a free tool to create visual content that widens the representation of beauty on the most popular GenAI tools. While Dove and creators cannot change the pre-existing biases of the data AI uses to generate images, we can help to change the generated images outcome through the power of the prompt. Let’s #Keepbeautyreal. Even in AI. 💙 Head to Dove.com/KeepBeautyReal to find out more. #Dove #LetsChangeBeauty #KeepBeautyReal

The next few days mark a special moment for Dove – 20 years since the launch of the Campaign for Real Beauty. Tomorrow, along with a new campaign, Dove will publicly renew its vows to Real Beauty for future decades, reflecting a world that has changed a lot since 2004 and ready for even more change. Watch this space.   But being there at the Campaign’s inception, I cannot refrain from indulging in some reflections on the past 20 years. I think about those very early days before it launched, in 2002, when we wrote, what we called then, “Dove’s Beauty Theory”, the sleepless nights at Ogilvy’s Chicago office drafting the “Dove book”, the endless worldwide travelling in 2003 for the Brand Stewardship workshops, where we first started to realise the power of what ‘Real Beauty’ could mean…and the butterflies I felt when seeing the first Campaign for Real Beauty creative presentation in New York. It was just the beginning of a movement to show the world what beauty looks like when it’s real. Thanks to the outstanding work of many leaders, passionate teams, and partners – 20 years later – it is still true to its mission of changing beauty from a source of anxiety to a source of happiness. We were – and still are – doing things differently. Marketing by creating emotional connections rather than just selling. And proving that winning businesses can be so much better when they are driven by a meaningful purpose. Today my ambition is the same; for Dove to never stop challenging the beauty norm and keep questioning the idea that only one type of aspirational beauty sells. And for more brands to embed purpose into their business because, when done well, it drives strong growth proven by 2023 being the year Dove achieved its highest underlying sales growth in more than a decade. And it is THIS the greatest source of pride for me, 20 years later: to be able to say we have demonstrated that there is NO trade-off between Purpose and Profit. #Dove #LetsChangeBeauty #KeepBeautyReal Silvia Dias Lagnado Steve Miles Mike Hemingway Richard Edelman Klaus Arntz Daryl Fielding Olivia Johnson Fernando Machado Sophie van Ettinger Leandro Barreto Firdaous El Honsali Luiz Fernando de Salvo Musa Ben Kay Daniel Fisher Jo Bacon Nadja Bellan-White (she/her/ella) Ogilvy Edelman

Is it even possible for a 10 year old girl to look 10 years younger ?   More than ever, young girls are being exposed to adult skincare content, which puts unnecessary pressure on them to adopt anti-aging routines even before they’ve fully grown up.   Dove has partnered with academic experts, dermatologists, creators, body confidence advocates, as well as mother, actress and talk show host, Drew Barrymore to raise awareness of this issue and help protect young girls’ self-esteem from adult beauty pressures through #TheFaceof10 campaign. https://lnkd.in/eiSVwcWZ   Creative content from our community shows what 10-year-olds should be using: glitter, stickers, and face paint—not retinol and other anti-aging products. And to help navigate the conversation of anti-ageing skincare content and beauty anxiety with young people, Dove created an expert-led resource for parents and caregivers - ‘The Gen A Anti-Ageing Talk’: https://lnkd.in/ehcAR6zN Beauty should be a source of happiness, not anxiety. For two decades, Dove has taken action to build confidence and self-esteem for over 100 million young people.    Together, let’s protect #TheFaceof10. #Dove #LetsChangeBeauty #DoveSelfEsteemProject #Faceof10 #DrewBarrymore 

In 2023, Dove delivered €6 billion in turnover and achieved its highest underlying sales growth in more than a decade. This happened at the same time as we recorded the number of 100 million young people educated on body confidence via the Dove Self-Esteem Project.   Now that we enter the 20th year anniversary of our Real Beauty campaign, all these numbers are a testament to the work of those, across different functions and partners, who never stopped delivering superior products and kept transforming the brand whilst keeping it always true to its core values, in the pursuit of changing beauty into a place where everybody is welcome.   I feel proud and grateful to all the people that have contributed to this €6 billion ride in previous decades and more recently. The success of this brand is their legacy. Marcela Melero Leandro Barreto Firdaous El Honsali Bianca Cancellara Amishi Shah Pau Bartoli Augusto Garzon Bérengère Loubatier Christina Habib

Knock after knock, girls get up again and get back in the game. Yet, almost half of them quit sports by the age of 14.   Dove is returning to football’s biggest night for the first time in 18 years, with an important message about keeping girls in the game.    Dove and Nike co-commissioned research found that low body confidence is the reason why 45% of girls globally drop out of sports each year – that’s twice the rate of boys.    As the world’s leading provider of self-esteem and body confidence education, we have a responsibility to support girls wherever their self-esteem is at stake. In partnership with Nike, we developed the Body Confident Sport program, a first-of-its-kind, scientifically-proven set of coaching tools to build body confidence in 11-17-year-old girls to keep them playing the sports they love.    Sports are for every body. We’re thrilled to return to the Big Game this Sunday with this message to ensure sports can be a place where girls can thrive and feel like they belong.    Tune in during the Big Game and join Dove to help #KeepHerConfident with the Body Confident Sport program. Head to Dove.com/confidentsports for more and share and download the Coaching tool here: bodyconfidentsport.com   Creative: Ogilvy  PR: Edelman  Paid Media: Mindshare  Digital: Media Monks, NAS. Music: BigSync Influencer: Collectively  Talent: UEG, U Entertainment   Hashtags: #KeepHerConfident #LetsChangeBeauty #DoveSelfEsteemProject #UniquelyUnilever #Dove #Unilever 

  Did you know that low body confidence is the biggest driver for girls dropping out of sport? Research from Dove and Nike reveals 45% of teenage girls drop out of sport globally, at twice the rate of boys, with low body confidence as the biggest driver. Today I am proud to announce we are teaming up with @Nike to take action towards a more equitable future for girls – on and off the field. Together we are launching Body Confident Sport a first-of-its-kind, scientifically-proven set of coaching tools to build body confidence in 11–17-year-old girls. As the world’s leading provider of self-esteem and body confidence education for girls, we have a responsibility to support girls wherever their self-esteem is at stake. Working with Dove partner Venus Williams, tennis champion and entrepreneur we’ll shift the conversation from appearance to capability.   On Dove, we have been obsessed with building self-esteem and body confidence in young girls for nearly 20 years - educating to date over 100 million young people. We have now taken that obsession in to the area of sports.   #KeepHerConfident #DoveSelfEsteemProject #LetsChangeBeauty #Dove #Nike 

Dove was the #2 most creative brand in Cannes 2023 💙 Proud to see Dove closing the @Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as 2nd most creative brand with a total of 15 Lions: 1 Grand Prix win, 3 Gold Lions, 4 Silver Lions and 7 Bronze Lions including a Glass Lion, with a total of 50 shortlists, if we include the ones converted in awards. The recognitions come from all over the world from US, Canada, Europe, Brazil, India, Thailand……a great testament to our unblinking belief on the power of creativity and the importance of emotions in building brands. Heartfelt thanks to all those teams around the world that have the courage to take risk…..and our incredible partners. We must never forget that creativity is ROI, ROE (energy…) and - above all - that creativity drives Change. #LetsChangeBeauty #OgilvyUK #Edelman #DavidMadrid #Collectively #Mindshare #Halpern #SOKO #CannesLions2023 #Creativity #Dove #DSEP #RealBeauty #NDD