Post 1991, India has changed.People have more money and are ready to spend that money.Dove is an Unilever product.As far as I know in western countries Dove is just another soap.But when it was launched in India some 20 years ago, it started a trend.
Before the launch of Dove in India we indians saw soap as an utility item, a thing with which you cleaned your body.But Dove was launched at a price point at least three times higher than the average soap.It was marketed as a soap of the rich, privileged classes.What followed in the two decades thereafter was unexpected.Nearly all soaps began to advertise like Dove-from a bath accessory soap became a style statement.
Soaps used to employ filmstars in their commercials but the target audience remained the faceless common man, the man on the street.But after Dove the soaps increasingly began to sell themselves as makers of status, of wealth.For instance if you used Dove, it probably meant that you had arrived in life.When the average man earned only a few hundred rupees per month.
Dove was priced at Rs 45.It was expensive and I remember in 1992 we had bought Dove soap just once to kind of try it out.But we never bought Dove again. Dove claims that it is not a soap but 1/3rd moisturizing cream.Well, a soap cleans the dirt off your body.Dove probably protects your skin more than your average soap bar but its not too good at cleaning.