This week, we’re talking to Ryu Yokoi, chief media and marketing capabilities officer for North America at Unilever, about Dove’s “Hot Seats” campaign — a bold, culture-hacking activation that shows up where the sweat is real and the stakes are surprisingly high.
This week, we’re talking to Ryu Yokoi, chief media and marketing capabilities officer for North America at Unilever, about Dove’s “Hot Seats” campaign — a bold, culture-hacking activation that shows up where the sweat is real and the stakes are surprisingly high.
Episode Transcript
Please note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.
Damian Fowler (00:00):
I'm Damian Fowler, and welcome to this edition of The Big Impression. Today we are talking about how Unilever is breaking taboos, opening up new kinds of conversations and connecting with consumers in some unexpected places. Our guest is Ryu Yokoi Chief Media and Marketing Capabilities Officer for North America at Unilever. We're going to dive into DO'S Hot Seats campaign. It's a bold effort to normalize conversations around full body freshness and engage people across both digital and real world spaces. We'll be talking about how this campaign's activating across concerts, social, retail, and digital platforms. So let's get into it.
Ryu Yokoi (00:46):
It always starts with understanding our audience and also try to make our products really relevant and desirable in that context. And so the hot seats are originated from social listening within the community. And in particular, one of our, actually her name's Dana Pucci, who leads our PR and influencer work on Dove for North America is a big Charlie XCX fan. And she noted that the Incredible Sweat tour, which was driving and kind of owning the culture last summer in the brat summer, that was
(01:21):
Unfortunately the Sweat tour smelled not great. And it turned out that Charlie and Troy Sivan were going to be performing in Los Angeles the week before the launch of our new whole body deodorant. We kind did a takeover putting our product in the bathrooms. We sent in creators to sort of experience what a show is like when you can make sweats smell great. And the results were kind of magic because we got just unbelievable. The UVC on this and the Delight with folks attending a concert that actually smelled great was really fascinating, just fantastic response. And that week we had a really great launch of the product, first hitting the digital shells on Amazon and doing great.
Damian Fowler (02:02):
That sounded like a very fast activation for a campaign.
Ryu Yokoi (02:06):
It happened literally within 10 days.
Damian Fowler (02:08):
What was the war room like for that 10 days? How did you strategize to get that done?
Ryu Yokoi (02:14):
We always emphasize we want to build worlds instead of chasing moments. So when you have an idea of what you're trying to build with the brand, how you show up, then it becomes a lot easier.
Damian Fowler (02:25):
And tell me a little bit about the tone. I mean, one of you mentioned the humor element of it. Why is that real talk, that humor so key to Dove campaigns?
Ryu Yokoi (02:34):
Well, I think there's a real authenticity that the brand has earned. We say, oh, it's an authentic, it's only authentic if people believe it. The brand is really comfortable in its own skin. We have a sharp understanding. I think that goes beyond a positioning statement to really understanding what this brand stands for, how it shows up in real life, what it would be like if you were to meet it and still be consistent in our building of that brand means to people.
Damian Fowler (03:00):
Yeah, I mean, I've got to say I live in New York and I've noticed the campaign on the New York, out of digital, out of home subway screens and it just totally cuts through and I noticed it. And of course you're standing on a New York City platform in terrible heat, humidity, and everyone's sweating. It's like a perfect placement.
Ryu Yokoi (03:19):
Well, I would say the subway work you've seen is really telegraphing that benefit, right? If you're blessed to be next to somebody who's wearing dove on the subway, then wow, this is a good ride. We've sponsored Charlie's spring tour and we're also showing up at other festivals like Lollapalooza, which have just provide another canvas for us to tell the story.
Damian Fowler (03:38):
Is it a case that once the campaign's out there in the wild, it builds its own momentum? Or are you actively trying to find new events, new points of pop culture? Kind of.
Ryu Yokoi (03:47):
That's exactly what we're trying to find, right, is we understand that if we're able to actually become part of the discourse, we're not just broadcasting ourselves in, but actively playing a role and helping people. And we had a similar case where the first weekend of Coachella people were again, lamenting unfortunately didn't smell great, and in this case somebody not us posted saying, well, I wish Dov would come and help here. We really had a lot of fun with it. We flew a plane over Coachella the second week saying, the cavalry's coming help is on the way we hear you need.
Damian Fowler (04:24):
That's good.
Ryu Yokoi (04:25):
Some help. And we're going to be there. We lined up folks around the entrances so that folks could kind of get freshen up on the way into the show or get freshened up, and more than a thousand people took advantage of that.
Damian Fowler (04:35):
Now, I wanted to ask you about some of the key signals or early reads on the campaign. I'm sure you're paying close attention as you evaluate the impact. What do you look for on your dashboard, as it were?
Ryu Yokoi (04:47):
Right. So I think first and foremost, you're right. Measurement is the most important
Damian Fowler (04:54):
Thing.
Ryu Yokoi (04:54):
But first and foremost, we did this the week before we were launching the product. So the first signal was did we turn well? And we
Damian Fowler (05:02):
Did.
Ryu Yokoi (05:02):
And the ramp on the product was really terrific. But I think to your point, it's really important no matter what the channel that you're playing in, what are the leading indicators that we can correlate with performance? In this case, it was one where things happened so quickly and we knew there was literally nothing else happening when we did this, and so we were able to isolate that way.
Damian Fowler (05:23):
Are there other channels that you are kind of thinking about or could be targeted for the campaign?
Ryu Yokoi (05:31):
In principle, I want to be able to capture signal everywhere. For me it's just around understanding where are people discussing whatever it is that we're trying to get into the discussion on and being authentic there. So for us, Reddit is a channel we haven't used as much in the past. Certainly now I find it increasingly of relevance for us. So we're trying to build up a skillset there,
Damian Fowler (05:55):
Especially
Ryu Yokoi (05:55):
Given how important it is with ais. Right.
Damian Fowler (05:58):
What about audio? Is that
Ryu Yokoi (06:00):
Podcast? Absolutely podcast. So
(06:03):
I would say, again, this was highly before it became something that we were rolling out in real life. Oh my goodness, the word is spectator events. Before it became something we were doing in real life as spectator events, it was a highly music driven campaign because we had decided to reboot this classic hip hop song from a few decades ago. And so it was already sort of music oriented and had played that way. But yeah, so for us it's exactly to your point. If we're talking about something that we're doing that's focusing on music or spectators, obviously audio is going to have relevance. Where are Charlie's fans actually discussing this? It turned out it was happening on Reddit. We go there, where are they discussing their experience at the concerts? We were seeing a lot of chatter on TikTok around that. And so we moved there. So we try to be nimble and agile and really be where the discourse is happening.
Damian Fowler (07:07):
So we're going to zoom out a little bit and just look at the big picture of the landscape beyond the campaign. But as you think about where culture is heading, whether it's wellness, inclusivity, or body confidence, what does the campaign kind of tell us about where Unilever wants to go with its brands or its kind of messaging wants to put out into the marketplace?
Ryu Yokoi (07:27):
We're all about building desire for our brands at scale. So we want to engage with communities wherever they are. It's about having a deep understanding of who our shopper is, what is driving desire for them, who influences them, and how we can really engage with them and create a discourse where we can try to move towards many to many communication.
Damian Fowler (07:49):
One of the big challenges for Marcus is balancing the long-term brand building with the short-term sales results. And do you think that there's a tension there right now in a marketplace that's very much dialed into performance?
Ryu Yokoi (08:01):
Listen, I think that it's really important that you have the right measurement in place and that you can understand both the short-term and long-term effects of the investments that you're making. That's something we really pride ourselves on. We want to be the most outcome oriented advertiser in the marketplace. But the other thing I would say is that more and more data signals and shopability are making it so the funnel is collapsing and we're nearing places when it comes to QR or having true shopability in stream where even executions that in the past would've been considered the most upper funnel can actually drive a transaction in that moment. And I think a future of that's really exciting.
Damian Fowler (08:40):
So finally, we're going to get into some of these hot seat rapid fire questions here.
Ryu Yokoi (08:44):
Okay,
Damian Fowler (08:44):
So you ready?
Ryu Yokoi (08:45):
Yes, let's go.
Damian Fowler (08:46):
Alright. What's one thing you're obsessed with figuring out right now?
Ryu Yokoi (08:50):
We've been talking about how much we've built out resources in this area and all of the interconnections that the data allows us to make. That implies campaigns that become more and more complex and much more complicated to just flight even. And so one of the things that I'm obsessed with is how we simplify that. There's so much change happening to accommodate all of this stuff. So really my big focus right now is on how we make working in this digital landscape easier for everybody involved in it because the amount of choices that we have and the richest is never ending. And so just making that more sustainable.
Damian Fowler (09:32):
I love that. That's a great answer. What's missing from the media and marketing marketplace that you'd like to see?
Ryu Yokoi (09:39):
From a Unilever standpoint, we have a few direct to consumer brands that are able to sort of track the media journey all the way through to conversion, but in the bulk of what we sell in traditional, fast moving goods are moving through retail. So what's missing is some way to penetrate that clean from a data standpoint so that those of us brands that aren't doing DTC can have that all the way through. We manage that well today with leading indicators and fast signals, but there's I think even more richness out there for us if we're able to correct that.
Damian Fowler (10:15):
To bring this kind of full circle outside of CPG, is there a brand that you think is doing a great job connecting with culture right now?
Ryu Yokoi (10:22):
Yeah, so I would name two. One that we really admire is Lego. I just see the way that they have both made their products, both a vehicle for other brands to build their worlds while also building incredible worlds for themselves. So they've become kind of this almost currency within the way that so many other brands are trying to build their IP in the world. So whether it's like a Formula One drop a Star Wars drop a Harry Potter drop, these things each have so much hype around them and they've learned while doing that so that they're able to propel their own ip, which is really impressive to me. So the other, I would say we had a fantastic opportunity to work with this year as crumble cookie. They were dove soaps, deodorant, lotions that were fragranced inspired by crumble flavors. And so in partnering then we were able to build off of that and make our soaps, our body washes, our deodorants, one of the drops of the winter. We struggled to keep it on shelf. So I'm a big admirer of the work that they've done too.
Damian Fowler (11:27):
That sounds cool. And then final, final question here. So in Unilever kind of portfolio of brands Dove Ben and, and the goal has always been to spark conversations, that's how we started this conversation. I guess I'm wondering if you could share a moment that reminded you of the importance of that brand led cultural impact that you can have.
Ryu Yokoi (11:51):
Oh wow. There's so many, but I'll give Dove so that we can show the other side of the coin because we've been talking about a campaign as I was saying, that shows a more playful side, the humorous side of the brand, but one of the areas the brand has focused over the past few years, and we just celebrated 20 years of the Dove Self-Esteem program, and Dove is one of the leading providers of self-esteem education in the world. I think actually we give the most annually self-esteem workshops. And one of the areas we focused recently is body confidence in sport. And so we partnered with Nike a few years ago to do research on the topic of young women in sport. And what we discovered along with them was that young women as they reach their teen years, are dropping out of sports at an alarming rate relative to guys.
(12:41):
And the chief reason is body confidence is feeling comfortable in your own skin wearing the kinds of outfits that you're wearing when you're playing sports. And so we set out to, together with Nike, actually develop a curriculum for coaches, which is the Body Confidence Sport curriculum that literally teaches coaches how to talk to young women about their bodies in ways that are positive and not discouraging. And so we've now been leveraging almost Trojan Horse, our participation across the big game. Our role as a sponsor of March Madness, we activated it last year with em, Navarro at the US Open really across major sports temples. We've just signed our first kit sponsorship of Gotham FC in the New York, New Jersey area of the Women's Professional Soccer League. And we're partnering with them also where they have a program called Keep Her in the Game. That's all around keeping young women in the New York, New Jersey area, staying, playing soccer. And so all of this focused again on trying to create a platform where we can talk about this and encourage people to go and learn about this curriculum. And the most encouraging thing. A really long-winded answer to your question,
Damian Fowler (13:58):
That's great.
Ryu Yokoi (13:58):
What struck me was we were looking back at the research and our spots in the big game have generated really good discourse the past couple of years. Really positive response from folks who've been inspired, not just by the ads themselves, but also I think this year we were one of maybe only a handful of brands that delivered a purpose message in the game. The really encouraging is the group with whom it resonated the most was Girl Dads, right?
Damian Fowler (14:26):
Yeah.
Ryu Yokoi (14:26):
The very guys who are probably coaching on the weekend who probably need to know more about how to speak to these young women and keep them comfortable and inspired playing. So it's stuff like that that makes me see all the time. As I was saying earlier, for us it's around how can we show up, how can we add value? How can we actually help the community? And when we do that, then we build trust and then we can have different kinds of dialogues with people and they really know who we are.
Damian Fowler (14:54):
And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression. This show is produced by Molten Heart. Our theme is by Loving Caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns. And remember,
Ryu Yokoi (15:03):
I think there's a real authenticity that the brand has earned. We say, oh, it's an authentic, it's only authentic if people believe it.
Damian Fowler (15:12):
I'm Damian, and we'll see you next time.