Dove’s CROWN Act was established in 2019 to help fight against hair discrimination of Black natural hair within the school and workplace environment. While Dove has made strides in passing the bill across the United States, they had the desire to shift focus on addressing the systemic bias around natural hair and the definition of professionalism amongst consumers.

After four years of amplifying the CROWN act petition with Black Women and Allies, Dove felt there was a need to create a ground swell of consumers taking actions within their own communities and ensuring that women see themselves reflected and celebrated.

We needed to spark powerful conversations about the prevalence and impact of hair discrimination and bias against natural Black hairstyles while raising awareness that Dove is working towards ending it nationwide with the CROWN Act.

According to the 2023 CROWN Research Study, co-commissioned with Dove, Black women’s hair is 2.5x more likely to be perceived as unprofessional.

For four years we’d built awareness and political advocacy for the CROWN ACT, to continue to make an impact in removing hair bias and discrimination in the workplace, we needed to infiltrate the media that surrounded the workplace.

Initially a platform to search for jobs or “like” a peer’s new promotion – there is a rise in LinkedIn posts that are more humanized and personal about their experiences at work. Like most social media platforms, LinkedIn profiles have a profile photo so users can recognize their connections.

By observing this surge in community on LinkedIn and the power of a profile photo, Dove sought to collaborate with the platform so that users can make claim to their definition of professionalism and show that ALL hair types are accepted.

Our communication strategy was focused on building an experience of celebration, advocacy, and education, rooted in a collaboration between Dove and LinkedIn.

--Celebration: Encourage Black professionals to be proud of their “CROWN” and redefine what professional hair is – updating LinkedIn Profile Photo and Sharing testimonials.

--Advocacy: Reach Allies who are attuned to DE&I initiatives and can help advocate for equitable workplace environments - Signing the CROWN Act petition.

--Education: On LinkedIn, DE&I specific courses and building equitable workplace environments were accessible to the public, bypassing the Paid LI premium subscription.

Paid Media was activated to drive scale and strike a match to the activity deployed by the brand and ambassadors across organic and earned efforts. This activity was targeted to both Black Women and Allies to make sure that they felt celebrated and supported as users continued to share their personal stories within work environments and communities.

We activated branded assets with real quotes from Black professionals on the challenges they have faced in their career. On TikTok and Meta we shared influencer’s personal stories targeted to Black women and Allies.

Digital OOH placements were secured in New York City office buildings - serving our message where hair discrimination is experienced.

Within Cosmopolitan Magazine, we launched a custom advertorial with Beauty Editor Julee Wilson - a trusted Black Beauty authority to educate readers on why hair-based discrimination should be eradicated.

We partnered with one of the largest tentpoles of the year for Black consumers – the BET Awards, Essence Festival, and XONecole.

For the 2023 BET Awards, we recruited Tai Beauchamp (Black Girl Jane Chief Brand Officer) alongside four BET executives to talk about the recent 2023 Dove x Linkedin research around the experiences and sentiments Black Women face with hair discrimination.

Black Women rallied behind Dove’s message and shared personal stories and updated their profile photos where they have a natural hairstyle.

Dove saw a 10 point lift in ad recall and a 7 point lift in Top-of-Mind Awareness amongst both Black Women and Allies (Non-Black consumers).

The campaign pushed Dove over its goal of 500,000 CROWN Act petition signatures. The hashtag itself gained more than 7m views within the first two weeks.

We were able to educate over 1 million hiring managers and workplace professionals on how to create a more inclusive workplace, with a spike in Belonging and Community among Black members on LinkedIn—the highest increase they’ve seen with Black professionals in two years.

The campaign gained more than 150 media mentions, including articles in Black Enterprise, Hypebae and Glamour, reaching more than 1bn people.