It was only a matter of time..

Well, it had to happen. Someone's decided to parody the Dove ad:

Made me happy at least. It does pose a question though - where do you move the campaign to now if you are Dove? I appreciate that the Campaign for Real Beauty as a strategic idea has legs; despite seemingly being very obvious (the essence and charm of the whole campaign, in my view).

The only (slight) problem I could forsee with this all is if Dove become po-faced like Coke did after the Mentos discovery, and start discouraging parodies like the one above, adopting a sort of Oprah inspired, holier than thou voice. I don't think it will, but I do think the brand will have to be very careful about who it associates with (unlike Coke, who should have milked that Mentos thing for all it was worth).

Such is the weight behind the brand that to move it from a traditional luxury product (see below) to a heavyweight, one for all utilitarian brand was quite something.

However, that's not to say that the brand can associate with just any event or service. Indeed, the fact the brand is now deemed so universal could work against it if the future communications is clumsy or the media spend unfocused.

It's what I'd term a 'pedestal' brand at the moment; in such a great, overarching position that by associating with an event or person overly (yes, I know, it associates with EVERYONE at the moment - I think this may change at some point and become more on one or two brand spokespeople), it'll turn off those who previously supported it from its prior 'one for all' comms output.

That said, I don't think it has a massive risk. Associate wisely, accentuate the campaign in other important avenues (sponsoring certain TV programmes/fun runs and the like) and it'll be just fine.