Dove's Positive Facebook Ad App Does Not Block Ads

A new Dove app disseminates positive ad messages aimed at women on Facebook, but it doesn’t replace other ads as has been reported elsewhere. The Dove Ad Makeover app is available in Australia and Brazil, and there are no plans yet for a launch in the U.S. or other countries.

The app essentially allows people to choose from a list of positive ad taglines to create ads to be targeted to women on Facebook. A drop down menu includes positive phrases like “Beauty is an all-ages show” and “When it comes to your body, love the one you’re with.”

The app includes user names in the ads. An example ad states, “Jean & Dove replaced this feel bad ad with a positive one. Send yours.”

Though a video describing the app suggests it “lets you replace those feel-bad ads with messages designed to make women feel good instead,” it doesn’t actually obscure other ads from being seen. Rather, the more people who download the app and create ads, the more Facebook ad impressions are used to promote the Dove-branded messages.

“Users design the ads and Dove simply places them via their large media buy and there may be some form of targeting layered in,” said digital marketing consultant Augustine Fou, also a ClickZ columnist.

App users can’t pick which people will be served the ads. So they can’t directly target their friends, for instance. It allows people to target ads loosely based on keywords associated with “women thinking about” love, careers, travel, beauty, and health. The app also posts a Timeline notification that someone has created an ad, and lets users share the app on friends’ Timelines.

The app effort carries on Dove’s years-long campaign intended to alleviate pressures on women resulting from advertising that negatively affects self-confidence. The Unilever brand will evaluate success of the app in Australia and Brazil to determine possible extensions to other countries.