Most Creative Marketers: Alessandro Manfredi

Every couple of years, Manfredi reads an essay on aesthetics by Japanese author and novelist Junichiro Tanizaki. In Praise of Shadows, about the philosophy of seeing beauty in the everyday, is apt for a marketer who championed Dove’s 'Real Beauty' campaign, first launched in 2004.

When he started work on 'Real Beauty', Manfredi looked to companies that owned ‘philosophy brands’ with a point of view about the world, like Nike, Apple and Ikea, which he credits with democratising design. Although internally people were arguing that to sell beauty, you need to show perfect aspirational beauty, Manfredi and his team proved it’s possible to sell beauty through inspiration. “Beauty must be democratic, and we needed to widen the different definitions of beauty,” Manfredi says.

But not many senior executives were convinced, and it fell to the team to show research. One piece was a film to encourage very senior people to support the initiative. In the film, the daughters and relatives of many senior team members were asked questions about body image. “And we were very shocked about what they told us; very young girls of nine years old saying ‘I want a flatter stomach’, when they were incredibly flat already. It was a shocking, but beautiful video, to the song ‘You are so beautiful’.”

Moved to tears, the executives understood and gave their support. “As a marketer, you play with the heart, but you also play with the rational facts, then you get people with you. Culture is fundamental, because otherwise you won't create,” Manfredi says.

“A magical thing”

Once buy-in had been secured, the team needed to find the optimum way to execute the strategy. At the beginning it was difficult to strike the right balance between what is aspirational, and what is inspirational, Manfredi explains. Of course, as Manfredi points out, ‘real women’ are ubiquitous in today’s beauty ads, and the challenge now is to differentiate Dove, which has gained confidence in emotional expression.

For its 2020 campaign, 'Courage is Beautiful' by Ogilvy Canada, Dove issued a brief and in 48 hours saw a brilliant idea, and made it happen in four or five days. What impressed Manfredi was the sharpness of the team, their passion and creativity and their agility. “And as clients we didn't have the time to ruin the creative with a lot of comments because we wanted to go faster,” Manfredi jokes. “But I think it's been a magical thing.” As part of the campaign, Dove donated more than €5 million worth of products and protective equipment to government and NGO initiatives around the world - including front-line healthcare staff and hospitals.

An “actionist strategy”

Manfredi says Dove is now moving towards an “actionist strategy” where it’s not enough to simply talk about purpose. First brands must create a change, and then eventually talk about it, like co-founding the Crown Coalition, with NGOs, to change legislation in the US to make it unlawful to discriminate against people based on their hair. Dove is now the biggest provider of body related self-esteem and body-confidence education programmes in the world, and has educated 60 million children. It’s aiming for 250 million children by 2030.

“By helping create systemic change in society, you really make a difference in society,” Manfredi says. “Then you talk about it, then you get rewarded by consumers because of what you do. And then you will do even more. And that's the positive circle I want to continue to create on this brand. And that is the future of how to do marketing for every brand.”

To Manfredi, being a creative marketer means balancing product communication with purposeful communication, and trying to interconnect the two. “You need to stand for something, and at the same time, you need to always have a superior offer than your competitors,” he says.

Although he gets frustrated by an occasional lack of passion, and too much politics in client-agency relationships, Manfredi is keen to create marketing ecosystems that value creativity. “It requires courage, because of course we’re a commercial brand as well.”

Dove products must be portrayed as beautiful, says Manfredi, because beauty is everywhere, even in the shadows of commerciality.