Welsh rugby stars soften up with Dove Men+Care partnership

By Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, marketingmagazine.co.uk, Wednesday, 02 May 2012 02:39PM

Unilever's Dove Men+Care grooming brand has signed a title sponsorship deal with the Welsh Rugby Union, in a move that will rename this autumn's test matches, the Dove Men Series.

Dove Men+Care: sponsored the Welsh Rugby Union's 2011 summer series of tests

The sponsorship deal is an extension of Dove Men+Care's previous sponsorship of the Welsh Rugby Union's 2011 summer series of matches. No financial details of the deal have been disclosed.

The Dove Men Series is made up of  four test matches in November and December this year, in which Wales will play Argentina, Samoa, New Zealand and Australia, at the Millennium Stadium.

Unilever launched its Dove Men+Care range in 2010, supported by a major brand campaign using the strapline, "Isn’t it time for comfortable skin?".

The campaign was one of the first in a series of marketing pushes from male-grooming brands that moved away from a typical celebrity-led approach to marketing within the sector.

The brand instead created a tongue-in-cheek campaign to bring new male consumers into the category, which has also been seen in the marketing of Procter & Gamble's ads for Old Spice, featuring US actor Isaiah Mustafa.

Unilever claims that the current sports tie-up for the Dove brand demonstrates its "high performance" for male consumers.

Paul O’Connor, brand manager, Dove Men+Care, said: "The matches making up the Dove Men Series will undoubtedly be first-class events and provide the perfect platform for showcasing the superior skin care qualities and high performance of our products in the Dove Men+Care range."

Follow Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith on Twitter @LoullaMae_ES

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk