CTV has developed a new web series called Get Fresh in partnership with Unilever’s Dove gofresh line.
Dove is marketing its three-year-old gofresh products–specifically its new Revive scent–around the series as part of its first online-only product campaign.
The content creation partnership, brokered by former media agency of record PHD, will air 13 weekly episodes of the fashion, food and fitness program over the summer months. Viewers can watch the debut episode at GetFresh.CTV.ca in a media player surrounded by an ad for the new Dove line. The site also attempts to engage the audience with polls, quizzes, lifestyle tips and links to additional CTV programs arranged in groups according to gofresh products: Cool, Revive, Burst and Energize.
“Part of Dove’s mandate is to literally ‘get fresh,’ so we decided to provide fresh content that would be unique to Dove,” said Nancy McConnell, director of digital media sales at CTV.
Dove is also using display advertising across various English and French online properties, using the online buy to drive traffic to the site. While there is no French-language programming being created, Dove re-skinned Astral’s Canal Vie website, a project that ended Friday.
The Get Fresh program is the result of audience research conducted by PHD and Unilever that showed the target market–comprised largely of lifestyle-conscious women in their early 30s–spends lots of time watching online programs.
PHD actually lost media AOR status with Unilever in February to WPP’s Mindshare as part of a North American realignment. However, with the Get Fresh project already underway with advocates at CTV and Unilever, PHD was asked to stay on to see it through.
The gofresh line is marketed only during summer months, said Angie Law, brand building director for Dove’s personal wash products, so PHD’s involvement will likely end in September.
According to Law, Unilever will track some online-specific statistics like time spent on site, but the campaign’s success will be determined by how it fares by traditional media standards.
“We’re actually tracking this as we would a television campaign,” said Law. “It would need to deliver similar results to a TV buy of similar expenditure. We know from early analysis that from a straight-up spend perspective, we’re getting many more impressions going the digital route.” Therefore, impressions, campaign awareness, sales and market share take priority.
“[In terms of] whether we continue with this type of campaign, I need to assess it versus other more standard media areas,” Law said.
The Dove products dominate the GetFresh.CTV.ca landing page, but their presence in individual episodes of Get Fresh, hosted by design and style expert and blogger Julia Black, will be sporadic and light.
“Dove is really concerned that [CTV] have control over the episodes and we all want them to be relevant to consumers,” McConnell said. “There will be some subtle references to things aligned with the brand or some subtle product placements… but it’s not a mandate to have a wall of Dove products behind Julia.”
Creating online content for advertisers has become a larger part of CTV’s offering this year. In March it partnered with Old El Paso and its agency of record Cossette to create a humorous Latin soap opera that appeared in the network’s regular stream of online programs.
The digital media sales group has also brokered deals with its Degrassi: The Next Generation program and Neutrogena, and helped create the online magazine Fora as a partnership between Johnson & Johnson’s Clean and Clear skin care products and MTV Canada.
“We’re building our business around providing as comprehensive a solution as we can for advertisers,” said McConnell. “One of the things that allows us to do that is our in-house team that lets us build [these online destinations].”
