The brief was to put Dove Men+Care on the map in culture and prompt people reappraise the brands mission to champion the care of dads. Through a timely tentpole moment for the brand, Father’s Day, the campaign delivered the Masterbrand’s ambition to build more meaningful and emotional work centred around positive examples of care from men.

#CongratsItsADad celebrates the men who received the ultimate Father’s Day gift – the birth of their first child. At the stroke of midnight, in hospitals across the US, specialist birthing photographers patiently waited to capture dads coming face-to-face with their newborns for the very first time.

Then, in real time, we celebrated with them live in feed and on outdoor. Welcoming new dads into the world and championing their life-changing new role as Dad. This real time campaign ran for the 24 hours of Father’s Day.

#congratsitsadad was born out of a need for male role models to be championed and heroed in an increasingly divisive and polarising cultural conversation around men and their role in society. As a brand we believe that when men have the courage to care, we all benefit.

While our target audience will always be skewed toward men, the topic of fatherhood is all encompassing–which is a gift when it comes to beginning and facilitating meaningful conversations in-feed.

New baby, new dad, new very live ad.

As midnight struck at the beginning of Father’s Day, we partnered with birthing photographers across the US to capture dads coming face-to-face with their newborn babies for the very first time.

The resulting portraits attempted to capture something of the raw, unscripted nature of birth, with the life-changing emotion that comes along with it.

These visceral images of emotion and connection, caught as fathers embarked on a completely new journey of care, were shared instantly across our social feeds, with each new Dad featured being welcomed by one of our team of partner influencers who were a few years ahead on their journey of fatherhood – sharing their own experiences, fears, hopes and dreams of what fatherhood has meant to them.

The Dove Men+Care 2023, Congrats It’s A Dad campaign led to 100% positive brand sentiment, and 9.4% uplift in market share during the campaign period.

The campaign led to over 35 million media impressions, an additional 416 earned placements and 217 million earned impressions of press coverage.