Case Study: Dove's Fast Moving CPG
Dove was able to launch fast and double-down on a winning campaign using aiphrodite.ai's visual pre-testing
So it's just a great tool we want to kind of have... so we can share it out to leadership. We can share it also to internal teams as they create creative next year [they can use the feedback] for learning purposes. -Brand Manager @ Unilever
Ok listen... we can't share everything about this case study because, well, Unilever is kind of a big deal and they didn't want us to share everything. Here's some of what we can share through text, and more can be found when you book a discovery call.
Overview
The 1-year old brand (younger than our chief cuteness officer, Marshall) from the $100 billion dollar Unilever portfolio, Dove Men+Care's Whole Body Deo was launching one of their first campaigns with a celebrity endorsement: Marshawn Lynch. But the new product, new brand, and new campaign meant a lot of unknowns. Plus it didn't help that certain parties forced a super tight timeline where they had to launch the campaign in a matter of days. Traditional testing methods were out of the question.
It's actually really amazing that they are [launching] right now. [Unilever has] told us, usually they won't run any creative unless they have a full on audience study before they dive into a market. -Eddy @ Outfront
Enter what our business team calls a "strategic three-way pre-test partnership" between Unilever, their agency, and us at aiphrodite. With our pre-flight AI testing solution, we simulated tens of thousands of AI Personas that gave Dove and their agency accurate campaign predictions and actionable insights in hours, not weeks. Our system provided predicted effectiveness metrics, captured subjective emotional responses, and generated heatmaps to show where attention was focused in each creative. Over time, we saw these effectiveness metrics align with in-market performance, validating the accuracy of our AI-driven approach.
Challenge
Unilever's Dove brand managers had no time to wait. A huge celebrity endorsement was the center of their latest campaign and they needed to make sure it was going to be a knockout success. But, with a tight turnaround time and budget, they couldn't afford to do any traditional testing methods. They needed something fast and accurate; so turned to aiphrodite's AI Personas.
Solution
...a great thing to be able to let us run this and give it to you in like 10 minutes. -Eddy @ Outfront
aiphrodite, a pre-flight A/B testing automation solution, stepped in to address their challenge. The platform leverages advanced algorithms and data-driven insights to predict and identify the top-performing ad creatives before the campaign launch. This allowed us to make informed decisions and optimize our ad spend effectively.
Results
Yeah, I'd love to go through some of the taglines and just see, like, are we able to see if they got the joke or they understood what we were trying to to convey? -Brand Manager @ Unilever
Well congrats, our AI Personas got the joke!
Our AI Persona platform is hands off. You just upload your creative, select your target audience, and boom, in a few hours you get back a full report with predicted effectiveness metrics, emotional response data, and heatmaps. We handle all the sciency stuff to create the most accurate predictions possible. Here are qualitiative outcomes we can share from Dove's campaign:
- Validated Predictive Accuracy: By aligning AI forecasts with real-world sales data, Dove Men+Care confirmed the model's precision. aiphrodite’s capacity to understand meta-humor specifically validated its sophisticated simulation of audience decision-making processes.
- Humor as a Differentiator: Both aiphrodite's AI Personas and social listening data consistently demonstrated that Marshawn Lynch's comedic creative significantly outperformed more direct, informational messaging.
- Emotion as a Leading Indicator: Subjective emotional measures—particularly humor and relatability—were established as reliable, front-end predictors of overall campaign effectiveness.
Conclusion
It's just a great tool... so we can share it out to leadership. We can share it also to internal teams as they create creative next year [so they can use the feedback] for learning purposes. -Brand Manager @ Unilever
aiphrodite's instant pre-flight testing platform is a game-changer for marketers seeking to optimize their creative. Book a discovery call to see how aiphrodite may benefit your marketing strategy.