Real Beauty, Real Breakthough in Consumer-Fortified Media (CFM)

As I note in my ClickZ column this morning "Real Beauty, Real Breakthrough in Consumer-Fortified Media," I've been a bit obsessed of late with the Dove brand's Evolution video spot.  (See spot below.)  It borders on compulsive, as I've been having e-mail alerts sent to me virtually ever second a new blog posts shows up related to this campaign.  As I see it, what makes this spot special and worthy of conversation is it brings a unique set of fresh learning about both consumer behavior and the future of digital marketing.  I'm not convinced it's easily replicable, or even scalable beyond the current execution, but it still ranks at the top of my brand "breakthrough" list.  I outline the reasons in the article, but here's the quick summary:

• The Numbers: Off the charts, and YouTube is only small part of the story
• Engagement:  Yes, we have engagement...in a big way!
• Consumer-Fortified Media:  It's not pure CGM, but CGM is what fortifies the content, and makes it meaningful.  Hence, CFM.
• Audience Targeting: The core target, women, is talking up this ad...in a big way! Good news for the brand.
• Social Currency:  Far from just available directly via YouTube, this ad is baked into thousands of other blogs, and acts as "social currency."
• Emotional Resonance:  You don't see this very often with brand campaigns: intense, deep, and sincere.
• Google Juice: This campaign may well be the "gift that keeps on giving," and against a very wide search funnel.
• Internal/External Synergy: Great example of holistic integration of igniting external expression and facilitating internal expression on brand site.

There's clearly a strain of counterculture in this ad campaign, and it's just too early to tell if there will be any side effects from this approach. In essence a beauty care brand is swimming upstream against a "makeover" culture of which they too are a part. Looking ahead, what we'll want to pay close attention to in relevant CGM expression venues is the the extent to which the positioning remains believable and credible.  So far so good.  (Other good links.  Ad Age Cover Story (Jack Neff):  Bob Garfield Review, BlogPulse Conversation Tracker)

(Full disclosure, my firm Nielsen BuzzMetrics provides syndicated data/reports to dozens of CPG companies, including Unilever, parent of Dove brand.)