Marcela “Mele” Melero, Chief Growth Officer of Dove Personal Care North America and Dove Masterbrand, joins Edelman’s Smita Reddy to explore the ways brands can stay relevant in the modern age. Mele discusses how Dove is shifting power from the brand to the people by widening the definition of beauty and adapting to societal shifts, such as the rise of AI. She reflects on her own career journey, the importance of taking risks, and how consistency and cultural relevance can drive lasting trust.
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Hi, this is Richard Edelman, and you’re listening to The Trust Makers.
Hi, everyone. I’m Smita Reddy, Global Partner at Edelman for Cross-Global Clients. The Edelman Trust Barometer has consistently shown that businesses and brands are expected to address societal issues. More and more people are looking to brands for inspiration, guidance, and community. One brand that’s been doing just that is Dove. For more than 20 years, Dove has been challenging beauty stereotypes and pushing for a more inclusive, honest conversation around self-image.
Our guest today has been a huge part of that journey. Marcela Malero, also known as Mele, is the Chief Growth Officer for Dove Personal Care North America and Dove Masterbrand at Unilever. She’s been at Unilever for over 27 years and a majority of her time spent on Dove. Among her many career highlights, she’s led the growth of Dove’s skin cleansing business, Unilever’s biggest personal care category for five straight years, and she is a mother of three daughters. So this work is very personal to her.
Mele, welcome to The Trust Makers. It’s so good to see you. This is a really long time coming because, you know, I’ve worked on Dove for many parts of my career. You know, you’ve been across the brand for over 25 years. So just it’s a great conversation that we’re really looking forward to today. So thank you for being on the podcast.
Thank you, Smita, for having me. It’s great. I mean, Dove is a brand that so many of us talk about in the industry, right? When we think about best in class, brand purpose, defining who you are, knowing what you are. You know, they’re known for its game-changing narrative around body image and beauty. And you were there early days, right, in Brazil, I think at the time when you first probably heard about the campaign or had thoughts about the campaign.
But Mele, maybe you could take us to the beginning a little bit and tell us a little bit about what originally sparked the idea for Campaign for Real Beauty.
So thank you, Smita. So yes, like a bit of time traveling. So for us, it always starts with listening. Yes, and listening to the community and the people we serve. So back then, I think it was 2002 slash 2003, where we did a massive piece of research that unveiled that only 2% of women consider themselves beautiful. That was a massive wake-up call, right? Like we were like, this cannot be right. That was the first thing.
Then we started trying to understand a bit better and we realized how back then it was like beauty magazines and the beauty industry were kind of basically establishing such high up and unattainable beauty standards that beauty started to become a source of anxiety and not of happiness for women. And we thought this was wrong and we thought that Dove had a role to play on changing this.
And it was then in 2004 when we started with Campaign for Real Beauty to make sure that we were going to make beauty a positive experience, universally accessible to every woman and every girl. So that’s how kind of it started. So it sounds so simple, right? When you talk about it 20 years ago, but I think obviously at the time it was a very different type of narrative, right?
I’m sure there was probably some concern, obviously for a beauty brand to talk about something else besides what beauty was being portrayed out in the world today. So how did you know that the message behind Campaign for Real Beauty was resonating? Like how did you get some early senses early on?
So that’s a great question. So yes, we were at the end of the 90s, last beginning of the 2000s, which is one of the maybe most toxic beauty type of decades. So yeah, so we went out with a campaign and there started to be waves. Yes, disruptive waves. We started having the haters and the lovers. We started making some of the headlines. You feel it, right, that you’re up to something.
But I think what really showed we were up to something was when we started listening again to the consumers, when they started like kind of sending us messages to the consumer lines and to things like that back then, there were no social handles, on saying how much they loved it, right? When we were going to do research with consumers and they were, oh my God, it’s the first time that I can see myself in a piece of work from a brand, right? And that’s when we realized that we were hitting a nerve, right? Like kind of whether we were up to something.
Yeah, and it’s so interesting because again, I think when I think back to those early days, especially that you were close to, it is easy to reflectback and say, okay, we had some haters and we had some lovers. But I imagine when it was happening, did it scare you guys or did you really take comfort in the consumers who loved it and leaning into that message? As you can imagine, you were part of it, it was an emotional rollercoaster, right? Because it was, Dove is a very big brand, so you were having those moments where like kind of, are we doing the right thing? Like when you start like kind of having some of the hate or stuff out there, but that’s where it kind of, you need to believe, I mean, we were like believing what we were doing and sticking course and relying more like on the love maybe, like to keep going and stay true to our North Star.
Yeah, and that North Star I think is something that many in the beauty industry, not just the beauty industry, but the industry in general now look at and say, okay, while others do this, we can say something different, we can mean and stand for something different. So 20 years, you campaign for Dove Real Beauty, it’s been in the market for so long. How do you keep the campaign fresh or how do you keep it relevant? Like, you know, how does that conversation still continue to go today? Because I think all of us have all witnessed and touched, been touched by Dove campaign, you know, not only within the past 20 years, but even from the past year. And so how do you keep that relevancy going?
Yeah, so yes, it’s been 20 years of campaign for Real Beauty. And for us, it’s all about always finding the timely articulation of that timeless truth. So we think it starts with consistency first. So having clarity of our North Star. Our North Star is to make beauty a positive experience for women and girls universally. And the reality has not changed. The one generating the pressure might have changed, you know, in the past where kind of maybe the supermodels or like the beauty magazines. Now it might be more like social media, but the insight remains the same. So we stick true to that insight.
The second point is authenticity. So it’s not just what we say, but we also try to do actions to drive this change. In our case, when we started with campaign for Real Beauty 20 years ago, we also started the Dove Self-Esteem Project, which is all about reaching girls with self-esteem education to make sure that body image and self-esteem don’t get in the way of them reaching the full potential. And that’s something we are committed. We’ve reached the lives of 110 million girls and we are committed to reach like a quarter billion by 2030. And we are on track for that. So then all those things don’t change. But then we need to be culturally relevant. And that’s when we throw us all in in culture. And as I said, making sure that we understand what’s the new reality, what are the conversations that are happening and adapting kind of the how we deliver the message to keep it real and fresh.
TikTok launches the beauty filter. We need to have a point of view on that. We have the Sephora twigs. We have a point of view on that. AI, we have a point of view on that. So that’s how we manage to stay true to the North Star, but bringing in a way that’s culturally relevant and can move with time.
Yeah, it’s such an interesting framework, right? I love that on Dove, you have things that are sort of non-negotiable, right? We’re going to stick to these true beliefs, but that we know that time and culture is constant and evolving. So the frame in which we put our lens in is going to change. And so I think about what you’d said about the Dove self-esteem program, reaching 110 million girls. It’s one of the largest providers of self-esteem education, full stop in the world, right? And that’s coming from a big brand like Dove, but to reach that many girls, it’s so fulfilling and so gratifying.
And you mentioned something about culture today. And I think we go through so many conversations in marketing, talking about the impact of AI. And Dove has actually taken a really interesting stance around AI and its depiction of real women. And I’d love for you to just talk a little bit about that. So last year for the 20-year anniversary of Campaign for Real Beauty, we did a massive piece of research, which was the Real State of Beauty study. And we realized there that AI was becoming a big, big threat to real beauty. So we know AI is amazing. Amazing in terms of creativity, amazing in short cutting some of the many things we do and all. But depending on how it’s being used, it could also be a big new enemy on creating unattainable beauty standards, especially when girls, but also us, we don’t discern what’s real or not real, right? Like we just consume the content. So we made a big pledge last year for the anniversary on saying that that would never use AI to represent real women in anything we do. So we are committed
To our pledge of no digital distortion and no AI distortion because we don’t want to feed even more things that can generate unattainable beauty standards. Not only that, but we did a real prompt playbook to help creators and other people that want to create things with AI,
but that they can do it in a way that they’re not generating unattainable beauty standards using AI. I love that so much because it’s grounded in both the culture that’s happening today, but it’s also grounded in reality in the sense that AI is everywhere, right? It’s not necessarily going anywhere. So what’s like the responsible use of it? And how do you maintain that not unrealistic view of beauty, but something that’s more attainable, that’s more everyday, that’s real, right? And I think that’s such a really interesting way of how you’re helping the community, not only the marketing industry, but creators itself to use AI in the right way.
So I want to talk about a different campaign that has been near and dear to our heart at Edelman, Beauty Never Gets Old. And it was celebrating the 67 years of the Dove Beauty Bar, which is sort of unimaginable to think about, right? Because the formulation has really never really changed, right? It’s something as classic as time. But you all use it as an opportunity to really celebrate women over the age of 60. I would love to hear a little bit more about the thought process around that and the kind of message that you’re hoping to send across when Beauty Never Gets Old.
So this campaign is also very dear to my heart, not because of the age I have, but kind of, but no, very dear to our heart. So yes, so the Dove Beauty Bar was turning 67. And it’s one of those products that you think about, it is in an industry where everything changes and there’s a new thing all the time. Something that’s been there since 1957 with pretty much no changes to it is like, wow. So we wanted to have some type of celebration for it. At the same time, in this real estate of beauty study, we realized that the pressure of unattainable beauty standards was very real. And we uncovered that it was even worse with the 60 plus cohort. If anything, they were feeling invisible to beauty, which was again, another big wake up call because we were focusing a lot of efforts on the younger generations. But we realized that this cohort was not even feeling they had a play in it. So we said like kind of, okay, let’s use this opportunity to really widen the definition of beauty and where beauty lives. And with Beauty Never Gets Old, we were trying to portray 60 plus consumers that have been using that bar for a very long time in their life, but portraying them in a way where they’re empowered and they’re part of this beauty and making a big statement, right? And not showing them as retirees on a cruise or things like that. Really, they were full of attitude, full of life, full of beauty. So we were trying to send that message, right? Like beauty never gets old. There’s beauty at every single age. And I hope that we were successful with that.
I often talk about Beauty Never Gets Old as a great example of, you know, for marketers, we always feel like we have to have the next new thing to talk about. The product, the news, what’s the new news? And it’s a really great example of like, it doesn’t always have to be new news. It could just be a different lens in which you look at the news, right? Or you look at the conversation. So I think that was just such a great example of that. And one more thing if I can to add is it did not appeal only to the 60 plus. It’s like, I can’t tell you Gen Z and all. They were like kind of, they’re loving this campaign as well because it’s such an uplifting and empowering message. And the attitude or badassery, I should say, is something that appeals across. Yeah, yeah. What’s old is like sometimes often what’s like the latest Gen Z fashion trend, right? It’s like Martha Stewart thing coming back. It’s New Dog, right? Yeah, I think it’s that, right? It’s like, it’s that like, it’s that sort of counterculture move.
So I want to talk a little bit. It wouldn’t be an Edelman Trustmakers podcast if we didn’t talk about the trust barometer. And what we found over year over year, which is sometimes, you know, obviously not too surprising for Dove is that the majority of consumers believe that business leaders are justified in addressing social issues if they can make a positive impact on that challenge. So what’s your approach to tackling sensitive topics without leaving anyone out of the conversation? You know, I think about the Dove Crown Act, which is a really great piece of work and work that you’ve done for many years. And we’d love to hear a little bit more about your work with the Crown Act. That’s worth asking.
So for us is like, if we want to really drive a change, we need to more than just do campaigns. We really need to do things to change things that are being pressure for our consumers. So what we do is always starting with listening. And we listen and try to identifywhere these pressure points are. And then we partner with experts in the field to try to drive this change because we don’t know it all and we are not the experts. That’s how the Crown Coalition started. With the Crown Coalition, we identified an issue in the African American community and we partnered with NGOs expert in the field. And the work is all about trying to ban hair-based discrimination, which basically means about people of color not being able to wear their natural hairstyles to work or to school. And the great thing is all this work started in 2019 and by now 25 states have passed a law banning this, which is a great achievement. Job is not all done and more work to come.
Yeah, I think it’s such a great piece of work. Obviously the work that you’ve done from a legislative standpoint, but also just the work in culture, right? For women, for Black women to be able to wear their hair naturally, for young girls, it’s such a positive message to see come through. And I think I’ve seen it so many times in culture and played out and you think about people like Michelle Obama wearing her hair natural, right? It’s just such a great example of what that means around really letting women be themselves, show their real beauty. So great work on that.
Okay, so you started your career out in Unilever. Obviously you’ve seen the organization evolve over the years. So what are some of the biggest changes that you’ve seen in Unilever from the start of your career to where you are today in terms of the approach to marketing and reaching customers?
So yeah, a long time in the career and also yes, a lot of changes. I think the biggest change has been like moving from this push brand as a broadcaster into the pool. It’s been moving from crafting brands in an ivory tower to handing the key much more to the communities. It has been from being able to plan and control everything to let go, which I think is the toughest for us. Like in terms of to let go and hand the key much more to the community. It goes from knowing what you want to do to listening to the conversations and being able to be more agile and more flexible.
Yes, as I said before, like for us it’s all about listening and today the conversations are happening at a speed that you need to be able to leave what you’re doing kind of and jump on that. Like as I said, for instance, Sephora twins. It was very clear we had to have a point of view as a brand, right? And maybe that campaign was not planned at all, but we went into it, right? Like because if we want to keep the brand relevant, culturally relevant and be able to have the next 20 years, we need to be able to do that. So those are some of the biggest shifts that we’ve been seeing or we’ve been doing ourselves.
It’s such a refreshing way to look at marketing, right? In the sense that in the past it used to be very fixed, planned, sort of you put it out into the world and that was sort of the end. And now there is this co-creation element or agility element that you need to play into.
So what are some of the behaviors that you look for when you think about your Dove team and the agencies that you partner with? Is it that ability to have that agility? Is it around creativity on the fly? Like what are some of the values that you value?
For me is like, I don’t know if it is a value, but in terms of we need people that are much more immersed in culture, right? And that’s something that you need to have that interest, right? You need to have that curiosity. Yes, it is about that being able to work not just in a framework of some things that are planned, but being able to go with the flow a bit more, right? Like because if we can say we want to do A, but then if it’s B, the conversation that’s happening or at times you plan for things, but then the community receives them in a different way, right? And the conversation starts taking it in another place. So yes, we need like people and agencies that are able to flex like that, right? And to shift things and all. So I think that’s kind of a lot of that and much more kind of comfortability with risk taking.
Yeah. Because today, like kind of, I feel that especially for big brands, if you don’t take a risk, you can become very obsolete or boring and not cutting through at all. And it’s very tough with, I mean, it’s easy to look at indie brands that are born out of social. With big brands, sometimes it’s tougher, right? Like, because you have so much at risk in a way. So unless you kind of, you’re able to go with the risks, not taking risks might be the biggest risk that you have for your brand.
Oh, I love that. Not taking a risk might be the biggest risk for your brand, right? I think that is such a really great statement aroundhow fast this world of marketing is moving. And if you want to play in culture and you want to go deep, you have to be able to know when to take those risks. And I can give you an example. So I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest collab of Dove with Crumbles. So that was a massive one, like kind of that worked together on as well. So we did like a holiday treat kind of collaboration for the holidays, like end of 2023. And as we did it, we realized that consumers were so excited with it, right? All socializing was like, oh my God, this is so cool, so unexpected from Dove. And they started talking about like cookies and like kind of bathroom. And, you know, there was all the trend of skincare meeting desserts. But it was not something that maybe it was that they expected from Dove. And we were like, okay, people are asking for this, like kind of our community is asking for this. And we decided to go with it. And we looked at what could be one of the, I mean, the coolest or like kind of more cult type of cookies to make it even more special. And that’s how we partnered with Crumble, which if you would have asked me 18 months ago, we were going to be doing something with Crumble, maybe the answer would have been no. But it’s been an amazing success, right? And it’s again, it’s about like kind of listening, taking the risk. And then I think things seem to work. And moving fast, right? I think that’s a great example of listening. Like, so if anyone’s listening to this, apparently you can pitch your ideas to Dove in the feed. But I think it’s a great example because Crumble is like one of the hottest Gen Z brands, right? And it’s such a really unexpected, but unique and obviously successful partnership. And I think you guys really do listen. And that is actually, I think, in the DNA of the 2% of women saying that they don’t feel confident, right? Or wouldn’t use the word beautiful to describe themselves to where you are today.
Okay, so a little bit closer to home because we both have young girls. Your girls are a little bit older than mine. But, you know, we talk about the work that we’ve done with the Body Confidence Sports Initiative. But it’s born from a really sort of sad place and sad statistic around Dove research finding that nearly half of all girls leave sports by the age of 14 because of low body confidence, right? And so it’s so damaging to our girls, right? This is a great example of where, you know, low body confidence isn’t just something, it’s not just around self-esteem. Really, there are health benefits attached to that. And so Dove launched the Body Confidence Sports Initiative. It directs every purchase towards creating positive social impact by keeping girls in the game. So I’d love to hear a little bit more about it. I know it’s something that’s personal to you, obviously, your daughters as well.
Yes, very personal to me. And as I said, when we started with Campaign for Real Beauty 20 years ago, we made sure that we also had a Dove component, right? Like we wanted to drive change and we realized that unless we started building stronger future generations, the program would perpetuate, right? And that’s how we started with the self-esteem program. 20 years later, we’re the biggest provider of self-esteem education for girls, which we never thought about it. As we were doing this work, we realized that sports is such an important part of building strong body confidence with girls. It’s an amazing, amazing thing for girls to do sports. But as we were researching this, we realized, as you said, that one in every two girls drop off or quit sports by age 14 because of body image, because they don’t feel comfortable, because someone says something and all. So we realized this was not right. And as I said before, we listened. We tried to partner with people that know. That’s why in 2023, we partnered with Nike to build the first of its kind tools to build body confidence for girls in sports. And basically, it’s a set of tools for coaches, for girls, and for parents to make them understand the issue and try to detoxify and then arm themselves and keep them in the game. We’ve been doing this work now since 2023 with a lot of success. We’ve been two years in Super Bowl that we’ve used the platform, like the biggest audience to drive awareness about this. And as you said, like kind of making sure that our products and the sales of our products help with donations to make the program grow more and be able to reach even more girls and keep them in the game.
I love that. Mele, you talked a little bit about this idea of listening, right? Not just putting content out, but more around how you have this two-way dialogue with your consumer. Can you share an example of a campaign that you did not plan for, right? That wasn’t in the docket, but it was really asa response to truly listening to your consumer. Thanks for the question. It’s a great question. And I’ll share the first, which is one of our latest campaigns. So based on listening, we realized that 90% of women have for every selfie they post out there, 50 in their camera. I can relate to that. I don’t know, like you as well. Like, and if you are looking for the perfect one and all, and we were like, oh, my God, this is one that we need to be part of. We want to say something and do something with this. Right. Because it’s not right. We want to change this.
And it’s a very interesting campaign and one very dear to our heart because the first campaign for Dove, that’s a creator only campaign. We don’t use creators to amplify our message. The creators did all from the beginning to the end. There was no extra production. We engaged with 100 plus creators across 14 markets to encourage them to encourage other people to just share the first without touching, without filters, without selection, just the first picture. And it’s been amazing. We have so far 1 billion impressions, which has been great, as I said, across 14 markets.
And again, another campaign that was not planned and came from listening and really tapping into creators as a different way of doing marketing on our campaigns. I love that campaign. The insight is so true. I think for every person, not just women, but every person, we do this. We take a million photos. We don’t just share the first. Right. We don’t. We’re overanalyzing every single little detail.
But what I love about that idea in this campaign is that, you know, to going back to the risk taking, it’s you’re giving that to creators. So you can’t edit their posts. You know, you’re sharing your brand out, right, to the world to see. So it takes a lot of bravery and risk to do that as well, which is exciting. I didn’t have a BPM, you know, like kind of that for me, like kind of it’s like, oh, wow, we’re doing it without it. So it’s been amazing. And I think it’s more and more the way we’re going to be doing more of our campaigns, content and engagement platforms.
So a lot. There are so many things from this interview, right, around timelessness, but also being timely, culturally relevant, moving at the speed of culture. If you like were to look at Mele 27 years ago, her starting her career out at Unilever, not knowing what’s ahead, what advice would you give that young Mele?
Oh, my God. So look, I’ve had the ride of my life and everything. So if I look backwards, it’s like I think trying to always focus on working on something that’s, you know, that’s filling your heart is like kind of very important. I don’t think I would have been able to be for such a long time in Unilever just focusing on selling products. I think kind of and that’s why as well, I’ve been for more than 20 years on Dove, right, because I was always feeling I was doing something more and I was building a brand, but I was also in a way generating change and a movement that was very personal for me as a woman. And then it became even more personal as a mom of three daughters.
So I think it’s like as I’m seeing now, like kind of my daughters choosing what to study or what to staff, all I always tell them is like, make sure you’re doing something that it’s like filling your heart as well, you know, because it’s not about the pocket, you know, and stuff. It’s like something that you believe in, something that makes you feel good because you’re doing good as well for others. So, you know, that’s kind of the advice of like took me some time on finding what I wanted to do and all. I actually studied food engineering. I did not study marketing. So this is something that’s kind of happened. And but I’m super glad that it happened. Right. And I’m realizing kind of that, as I said, like building brand, but generating that impact is something that that, yes, like it would be my advice for anybody that’s starting a career or what or finding what to do in in life, in professional life.
That’s wonderful. I mean, with that, I think I have to just say thank you for joining us today, but also thank you to the many people at Edelman who work on Dove as someone who’s worked on this brand for many years as well. It is something that truly fills your heart. It is work that is truly personal, but it also makes the work better. So it’s been a privilege. It’s been such a great time getting to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is Dove. And thank you for joining us today and being a part of Trustmakers, Melly.
Thank you, Smita. Thanks a lot. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for tuning into the Trustmakers, an Edelman podcast in partnership with Advertising Week, where we speak with leaders and other trust builders across institutions. See you next time. Thank you for tuning into the Trustmakers, an Edelman podcast in partnership with Advertising Week, where we speak with leaders and other trust builders across institutions. See you next time.
