One quality that’s defined Laura Douglas’ creative work for Dove is agility.

When Douglas, Unilever’s Dove masterbrand lead in Canada, worked with Ogilvy to develop the CPG’s “Courage is Beautiful” campaign in 2020, it took just five days from inception to execution. On the “#KeepTheGrey” campaign two years later, she topped that mark at an accelerated rate of only 48 hours.

Quickly responding to timely cultural conversations is part and parcel of what Douglas values within marketing. And it’s proven to be successful, with her work bringing in industry accolades and helping to grow double-digit topline sales for the brand.

But along with that agility comes a commitment to community impact. “It’s not just about crafting really emotive campaigns or communications, it’s about making relevant change,” Douglas says.

“We started this approach of being an actionist brand and taking meaningful actions alongside the communications that we do. But this is something that’s innate to who I am as a human being and I came into the business world wanting to be able to create change with the brands and businesses that I work on.”

Douglas has worked on the Dove brand for eight years, nearly the entirety of the young marketer’s career. She started with Unilever as a customer development intern in 2014. And since 2016, Douglas has worked extensively on Dove, including working in brand manager roles for its hair and deodorant businesses, spending more than a year as a global associate brand manager in the London office, before moving up to take on the company’s masterbrand lead role in Canada.

Drawing from her experience across the brand, she’s developed successful Canadian-born campaigns with global reach. Her work with Dove helped it receive recognition as one of strategy’s 2023 Brands of the Year.

“Courage is Beautiful” – which featured the faces of frontline healthcare workers who worked tirelessly during the COVID-19 pandemic – was rolled out to 15 other countries after its Canadian debut and won nine Cannes Lions. Meanwhile, “#KeepTheGrey” responded to CTV National News anchor Lisa LaFlamme’s dismissal by encouraging people to go grey in opposition to ageism in the workplace. It was one of the most successful campaigns in Dove Canada’s history, receiving plenty of global coverage and online attention. It also led Dove to be offered a seat on the Ontario Human Rights Commission board to help advocate for women discriminated against in the workplace.

Douglas says her approach to marketing prioritizes delving into prevalent cultural topics that make the creative work stand out.

“We are in a society that has such a big attention deficit, especially after COVID,” Douglas says. “We’re all glued to our phones. I have less than two seconds as a marketer to get your attention. So is this going to be thumb-stopping creative as you scroll your social media feeds? Is it actually going to have you look up on the subway at an ad?”

Looking ahead, this year marks the 20th anniversary of both Dove’s Self-Esteem Project and its Campaign for Real Beauty, both of which work to build self-confidence in women and youth. Douglas is taking these anniversaries as an opportunity to reflect on how far the brand has come, and to speak with women and girls across the country to better understand how self-confidence issues have changed over the last two decades. That research is about ensuring Dove is still authentically connecting with its audience, Douglas says, and continuing a long history of Canada being one of the global brand’s outstanding markets. 

“Everything that we do has to be ownable and authentic to the brand. But the newer piece that I wanted to add was about being timely and relevant in culture,” Douglas says. “How is Dove showing up, and how are we standing up for what we believe in, [and] in moments that matter to Canadians?”