BBDO Beijing launches ASMR videos for Dove to give consumers a sensorial experience
For many years, Dove has established its core brand around the notion of “silky smoothness”, referring to the product experience of Dove chocolate and its incredibly fine texture. However, after years of showing pieces of brown silk flying through its commercials, Dove needed to do something to refresh interest and bring attention back to “silky smoothness”.
BBDO Beijing took on the task to communicate this silky smooth pleasure experience via an experimental idea – ASMR video, an incredibly popular sub-culture of internet videos.
ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) is a physical sensation characterized by a pleasurable tingling that typically begins in the head and scalp, and often moves down the spine and through the limbs. That pleasure could be analogous to the tingling of silky smooth pleasure experienced by consumers whilst eating Dove chocolate.
Inspired by this, BBDO Beijing helped Dove launch two experimental ASMR videos. It is the first time globally any brand has tapped into this growing genre of video content. And also the first time ASMR videos have been made with high production values.
Dove partnered with Guokr, a popular science platform in China. The two films were put to rigorous scientific testing to ascertain whether they really did have physiological effects that simulate pleasure in viewers. The results are currently being studied by neuroscientists and will be made public in the coming months.
The online experiment is also available on Iqiyi, so you can track your heart beat whilst watching the films on a dedicated campaign page.
“This is about harnessing cutting-edge technology to tell a beautiful Dove story of a pleasure seeker”, commented Howard Mok, ECD of BBDO Beijing.
Dove and BBDO Beijing, together with MediaCom and @PR, are proud to be experimenting with the format of their content to interest consumers in new and engaging ways, and hope to give “silky smoothness” a whole new level of affinity and understanding in China.
1 Comment
I put headphones on as suggested and I’ll tell you the very strong psysiological effect these films had on me.
Closeups of people licking their fingers?? With that macro sound design? Like nails on a chalkboard. I watched the first feeling extremely uncomfortably then couldn’t make it through the second. Absolutely revulsion. Horrible. WTF were you trying to do to me?!