Dove has been challenging stereotypes and campaigning for Real Beauty for over 20 years. 

With "Code My Crown," Dove has taken this vision into the virtual world, to address the underrepresentation of Black women’s hairstyles in video games. The strategy leveraged Dove’s credibility in diversity and heritage of advancing racial equity to build trust and relevance with Black Gen-Z gamers in a space that’s truly native to them: gameplay.

In doing so, Dove reinforced its vision and leadership on representation in new ways and in an overlooked space, driving cultural change and making the brand relevant for a new generation.

At a time when many brands are backtracking on their diversity and inclusion efforts, Dove’s commitment to real and tangible action on behalf of underrepresented women continues to set it apart. It had built deep trust with the Black community by advancing the CROWN Act, which helps protect against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles in America.

Using its hard-won credibility garnered across decades of action, Dove is pushing into new frontiers where representation is still a considerable challenge, and where empowerment and expression are still often suppressed and stifled. 

The gaming industry is one of those frontiers. Unlike other forms of media and advertising, the gaming industry has been surprisingly slow to focus on increasing authentic representation of all women on its platforms – with a real impact on gamers’ ability to see or authentically express themselves in gameplay.

The Code My Crown addresses a longstanding blind spot for the gaming industry. When the programs and algorithms were created for the 3D world, they were made for straight (Caucasian) hair.

We live in an era where culture and identity are lived and shaped both offline and, increasingly, online. People spend more time than ever before inhabiting virtual worlds, reshaping and redefining social cultural landscapes in the process. 

Gaming is a major part of this new world. It is a business worth $242 billion (2023) and, with an estimated 3.3 billion gamers worldwide, it is a significant and impactful component of the digital realm. Just as in the ‘real’ world, making everyone feel welcome and building a sense of belonging in their online experiences is vitally important.

A fundamental way in which people experience belonging is in the way they choose to represent themselves in their game avatars. According to a 2023 Roblox survey, 29% of Gen-Z gamers say digital self-expression through avatars helps them build connections with others, while a quarter say it boosts their confidence. 1 in 5 say avatars allow them to express their true identity. Avatars are an essential part of game play, and to how players express themselves. The avatar market alone is worth $40billion USD.

But, while seemingly endless combinations of characteristics can be used to build an avatar, there is one crucial blind spot: Black women’s natural hair.

Dove commissioned research to unpack the issue. It found that found that 85% of Black gamers say they feel underrepresented in video games, specifically when it comes to the depiction of their hair textures. 

This was confirmed in further qualitative research with game developers.

In an increasingly digital world, this was not a niche problem: 48% of game players identify as female, and 29% of game players are people of colour.

Additionally, 87% of Gen-Z say they play games, a critical growth audience for Dove.

It meant that in an increasingly digital-native world, in which there were now millions of Black female gamers, Black representation could no longer be considered a niche problem. 

The underrepresentation of Black hair textures and styles in gaming presented an opportunity for Dove to bring fresh, contemporary relevance to its mission to make beauty a source of confidence, not anxiety, for all women.

Through research we knew that  for today’s digital-native generation, representation in gaming is as crucial as representation in real life. 

The question was what Dove could do about it, and what power it would have to tackle the issue. Dove makes hair, skin and beauty products. It doesn’t develop games.

Our creative breakthrough came from analysing the research responses from game developers. One statistic stood out: 74% of developers said they would play a role in promoting better representation of textured hair in video games – if they could learn how to code textured Black hair.  

Dove has a track-record in education. Through the Dove Self-Esteem Project, founded in 2004, it is the world’s leading provider of body-confidence and self-esteem education for young people.

By the same principles, if we could educate developers with the skills they needed affirm gamers’ self-perception and confidence, the impact would be huge. 

To tackle the challenge, Dove launched "Code My Crown," the first comprehensive guide for coding Black hair textures in games, developed with Black artists and the Open Source Afro Hair Library.

This initiative provides game developers with the tools to create more inclusive and representative gaming experiences, enabling players to see their identities more authentically mirrored in their avatars.

And because the guide is usable by anybody rendering textured hair, the action that Dove took could live and imbue itself in culture – putting representation actively into the hands of creators and the people, instead of being passively shown in media and advertising. This is a clear and definitive shift in how Dove interpreted the concept of representation and used it to bring its vision to life in a new, culturally-driven way.

Societal change: advancing representation in gaming by coding Black hair better.

2,691 downloads of the Code My Crown guide.

Top gaming companies Ubisoft, Undead Labs, Activision incorporating it into development processes - total reach 34,000 employees serving 229 million gamers globally.

Dove got credit for sparking change. 95% of Black gamers agree “the initiative has a positive impact on the gaming industry.”

Brand improvement: sparking cultural relevance by solving a real problem for a passionate community.  

The campaign hit a nerve: 1.81B+ impressions (benchmark: 900m) with 100% positive/neutral sentiment

Got the conversation going: engagement rate of 22.90%, outperforming our benchmark of 4.30% by +432%

Supercharged brand relevance: 81% of Black Gamers said the initiative made them feel more connected with Dove

Most impressively: 37% Black gamers and 37% Black Community said Dove is the only brand they consider buying after seeing the Code My Crown initiative (+7 and +9pts respectively).  

In an era where digital interactions and cultural identity is more interconnected, Dove recognized a significant gap in the gaming industry's representation of Black women, particularly their hair textures. This underrepresentation in a market worth billions and integral to youth culture was a glaring oversight.

Dove, known for its ongoing Campaign for Real Beauty and advocacy for diversity, saw an opportunity to extend its influence into new digital spaces, a move aligning with its core values and addressing both cultural and market needs.

By introducing "Code My Crown," Dove adapted to the market disruption that’s continually occurring in the digital world, innovating how the brand contributes to diversity and inclusion beyond traditional media. This strategy not only addressed a specific consumer need but also redefined Dove’s engagement with a younger, digitally-native generation, fostering a deeper connection through meaningful, culturally relevant actions.