There are brands born in the digital conversation, and brands that arrive in it after decades of building themselves elsewhere. Both do influencer marketing, but not from the same place, and that difference explains a lot of what we see working (and not working) in today’s campaigns. In this article, Daniela Vattuone looks at the cases of Rhode and Dove to ask something that goes beyond budget or creator size: where is each brand speaking from, and how consistent is that with what it wants to build?
Authenticity
Brand Origin
Coherence at scale
Opal x Dani: Where does the collaboration begin?
I met Dani at Samsung in 2014, a year that feels further away every day, when we worked together in the company’s mobile division (probably the most important category at the time). Since I arrived in Spain and reconnected with her through LinkedIn, I’ve always liked her analysis of how brands are built and how the way we communicate them is changing. When I started shaping the agency’s editorial section, I felt her point of view had to be part of Opal. It’s a pleasure to open this editorial space to her voice, and we hope this is the first of several collaborations. Enjoy!
When Dove and Rhode do influencer marketing, they’re not on the same page.
We tend to assume the secret lies in the budget, or in the fact that its creator is a celebrity with millions of followers. And yes, that helps. But to understand it better, we have to go back to Rhode’s origins.
This brand was born inside the digital conversation. It didn’t “enter” TikTok to communicate, it grew there. Its community wasn’t built by a marketing team: it was built by Hailey Bieber talking about her skincare routine. Remember that she herself combines celebrity/show business and influencer. The product and the narrative have been inseparable from day one.
Dove, on the other hand, has spent decades building brand equity with other codes: television, OOH, big campaigns, mass distribution. In other words, “old school” advertising. On top of that, it makes its move into influencer marketing with its “Real Beauty” platform, which remains one of the most consistent brand strategies of the last twenty years, but it’s a layer added to a structure that already existed. The creator amplifies a message that was already built. And it doesn’t have its founding muse behind it, the mega-influencer Hailey Bieber.
These two models are very different.
The problem appears when a long-established brand tries to replicate the authenticity of a digital native without understanding that this authenticity can’t be imported. It’s built from the inside, from the founding narrative, from the reason the brand exists.
What big brands can do is something digital natives are still learning: scale without losing coherence. Keep the message when the channel grows, when the creator has millions of followers, when the campaign has to work in ten markets at once.
The question isn’t who does it better. It’s whether each brand understands where it’s doing it from, and whether that is coherent with what it wants to build.
Do you think long-established brands can develop that native authenticity, or will they always arrive a step behind?
For Opal
Daniela Vattuone
Editor's note: Daniela is a Marketing & Communications Consultant with many years of experience in major corporations. Check her LinkedIn Profile
