The Wings of the Dove: Behind the Brand's Rise (HBBIP #93)

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I have to level with you folks: lately, I’ve been having a problem with these newsletters. And it doesn’t seem like a problem that’s likely to stop anytime soon.

See, HBBIP was founded with the purpose of profiling brands that have seen impressive growth thanks to exemplary creator marketing. Over 93 issues and counting, I’d like to believe that we’ve done a pretty decent job of adhering to that mission. So this problem I mentioned isn’t really on our end. It’s the brands that are messing everything up!

You know what these brands had the gall to do? In vast numbers? All around the world?

Get really good at creator marketing! Invest in their creator programs! Understand that creators are essential to doing business in the modern marketplace!

Now, all of a sudden, I have what feels like hundreds of brands to profile. It’s overwhelming! This is what happens when creators prove their unmistakable value to every industry across every global market: more work for me. Let’s not lose sight of that. Heavy are the hands that type the newsletter, my friends.

In case it wasn’t clear, I’m kidding, sort of. Yes, every day I’m reminded of the depth and diversity of this remarkable industry; yes, this does entail more writing for yours truly. But obviously that’s a pretty great problem to have, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. You mean I get to write every week about the most exciting industry on earth? Sign me up.

So here’s to many more brand spotlights! May we never reach the end of them. Because I can promise you that there’s a lot more to come.

The Top Brand of All Time (of the Week): Dove

All that positivity in the intro got me in the spirit to profile a similarly sunny brand—one that has a history of lifting up consumers, and enjoying some lift of its own in the process. Ideally this positive brand would also be named after, like, an internationally recognized symbol of peace and unity and love, but I don’t know, that might be too on the nose.

Enter Dove. The personal care brand has been doing big things as of late, which is why I want to take a look at its numbers both in the U.S. and globally. Fortunately for me, while the global numbers are considerably larger than the U.S. numbers, which confirms my prior notions of geography, these numbers tell a similar story.

Take creator count—after all, everything starts with how many people are talking about your brand. Here’s what Dove’s momentum over the last five years looked like in the U.S. of A:

Dove Creator Count (US): 2020 - 2024

A slight dip in 2021, steady growth through 2022 and 2023, and a surge in 2024, to close the brand at roughly 4x where it was in 2020. And how did that play out across the globe?Dove Creator Count (Global): 2020 - 2024

If you guessed “a slight dip in 2021, steady growth through 2022 and 2023, and a surge in 2024, to close the brand at roughly 4x where it was in 2020,” then congrats—this is probably a boring newsletter for you so far.

Note, however, that we’re operating on a different scale globally, where Dove earned shoutouts from 20.7k creators, compared to the U.S., where 11.9k creators favored the brand.

Across key metrics, patterns are generally the same for Dove in the U.S. versus globally. Any way you slice it, the brand is doing extremely well. One area of slight divergence came with Dove’s impressions. Basically, while Dove saw a big surge in the metric between 2022 and 2023 in both markets, when you look at the world as a whole, the brand also saw a more pronounced jump between 2023 and 2024, compared to a more modest growth in the U.S. 

Here are those U.S. figures:

Dove Impressions (US): 2020 - 2024

And here we have those global figures:

Dove Impressions (Global): 2020 - 2024

I had a hunch about where this discrepancy might be coming from. Long story short: TikTok drives impressions. The U.S. tends to be a more TikTok-heavy market. Maybe there’s just additional TikTok saturation to be found globally, whereas more of Dove’s U.S. creator base is already on the platform?

And so we go to our channel breakdowns! From June 2024 to May 2025, TikTok Pac-Manned the competition in the U.S., driving 88% of Dove’s impressions.

Channel Breakdown (US): June 2024 to May 2025

At first glance, global figures don’t look all that different: an 86.2% proportion, which is quite high, considering not all markets have embraced TikTok as strongly as the U.S.

Channel Breakdown (Global): June 2024 to May 2025

As always, to get the full picture, you have to dig a little deeper:

• Dove’s U.S. impressions YoY change: -1%
• Dove’s U.S. TikTok impressions YoY change: -5%
• Dove’s global impressions YoY change: +46%
• Dove’s global TikTok impressions YoY change: +48%

Ladies and gentlemen of my readership, I rest my case. While Dove continues to make strides on TikTok globally, the brand has seen the slightest of declines on the channel in the U.S., though it continues to grow in other metrics.

Who are some of the global superstars fueling growth for Dove?

Dove’s top creators include personal care experts like TikTok’s very own Tatiana Rose (@selfcarewithtatiana). When she’s not curating scent-specific shower routines (think vanilla, tropical fruit, etc.), Tatiana is making sure to shout out her favorite Dove products—and the brand has more than returned that affection, sending Tatiana PR packages and facilitating her career growth. 

It was a similar story for certified trichologist (my new fact of the day) and beauty enthusiast Abbey Yung, who wore her #DovePartner status with pride when she promoted the revised and relaunched Intensive Repair Shampoo & Conditioner.

This partner program showed its global reach via a healthy contingent of Dove fans from Brazil, including Paolla Oliveira, who participated in a range of brand initiatives, including Dove’s efforts to help creators spread positivity by sharing underappreciated, previously unposted moments from their camera rolls. The #ShareTheFirst initiative, which encouraged women to break the stigma and pressure behind maintaining perfectly curated social media feeds, resulted in 133 posts from 62 global Dove partners as one of the brand’s most impactful campaigns over the last 12 months.

This emphasis on creators as the standard-bearers for the brand, and the frontline for key company messaging, comes straight from the top. As a Unilever brand, Dove exemplifies CEO Fernando Fernandez’s strategic commitment to spend 50% of its media budget on social channels, and invest 20x in creator marketing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dove’s consistent growth with creators served as an inspiration for this strategic adjustment, and a template for other Unilever brands to follow.

Across continents, Dove has consistently found creators with an affinity for not only personal care, but the brand’s mission statement, enforcing positivity, confidence, and non-toxic standards of beauty. That commitment to brand fit, as well as a savvy focus on TikTok, helped Dove soar over the past several years. While the brand’s U.S. impressions flagged somewhat during the past 12 months, its engagements rose 84%, showing that Dove’s mission still resonates, especially in an era of such negativity. And with a passionate partner program as the wind beneath its wings, Dove looks poised to fly even higher.

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