Dove gets real about beauty

The Innovation team at Instinctif harness the best of the future to deliver market-leading ideas in the present. The team’s specialism spans digital strategy and marketing, data & analytics, and strategic brand. With the world and news agenda fast-changing around us, now’s the time to get agile in how we think and work.

This newsletter brings you the best of the week in the ‘new normal’, straight from the desk of the Innovation team.

According to skincare company Dove, 70% of women do not feel represented by the advertising industry. And Dove has set about doing something about that.

In 2019 the brand partnered with Getty images to develop a collection of 10,000 images showing individuals who fall outside of the mainstream model mold.

To date, over 2,000 companies from 51 countries have downloaded the images.

Now Dove has gone one step further – by ‘hacking the advertising industry’, working to make changes from the inside.

They sent their own diverse female models into commercial casting calls, with the women asking one simple question:

“Do you think you’re bold enough to put me in your ad?”

If the casting directors featured the models, crucially showing them as they are, Dove would cover the cost of their appearance.

The result? Dove’s models were shown in adverts for big brand campaigns, including Magnum, Krispy Kreme, Cif and Nedbank.

Learn more about project #ShowUs here and watch the #ItsOnUs advert here.

Demand for home deliveries is surging, which means more traffic and emissions. New company, Brought By Bike has come up with a solution here – a directory of companies and tradespeople from across the UK who deliver by bike.

Created by Helena Downey who came up with the initiative after her street became part of a a low-traffic neighbourhood. “I thought, ‘living on a nice quiet road is great for me, but what can I do for others?’,” she said. “The emissions and traffic from van deliveries aren’t going away any time soon.”

Launched in December 2020, Brought By Bike, is free for both customers and businesses and is not for profit.

Check out the directory here.

This week’s tip comes from Account Manager, Seb Holland.

Want to break free ? Well now you can…

Although many of us are counting down the days until we are back and meeting face to face, video conferencing tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom have become a fundamental part of working life and will continue to be so post-pandemic.

Microsoft Teams has recently launched a nifty new feature called “breakout rooms” which allows meeting attendees to split into smaller groups (or “rooms”) that facilitate group discussions and private conversations to run within a call. The host can then bring everyone back into the main meeting with just the click of a button.

There is even a timer setting that will close the breakout room automatically, to ensure discussions are kept to the allotted time.

One thing to note is that you need to be the meeting organiser to use breakout rooms. Aside from that, all you need to do is click the breakout rooms icon, choose the amount of breakout rooms you would like and then assign people to their respective rooms. Simple!

There are a whole host of useful business applications for breakout rooms, including team training sessions, project discussions, group exercises and brainstorms but the function can also be used for team quizzes and game nights!

A step-by-step guide of how to set up breakout rooms can be found here