Dove's Magic Mirror Marker

Dove "The Magic Mirror"

Remember the body lotion sample that came in the last magazine you read? Probably not. Because, as Dove reminds us, millions of these samples are overlooked by people every day, throwing valuable marketing dollars down the drain.

Enter Dove's Magic Mirror Marker.  To ensure that their samples actually got sampled, Dove sent a handy little kit to select hotel managers encouraging them to leave notes on guests' mirrors with special de-misting markers.

While I really like the idea in theory – and applaud Dove’s use of technology in interesting way – I’m not sure about reaching out to people while they’re standing naked in hotel bathrooms.  A less intrusive location for this tactic would have been in spa or gym locker rooms, which are at least more public spaces and in many cases display advertising already.  I could even see a more romance-related company using these markers as tools for couples to send each other notes (which is obviously completely off-brief in this case, but would be an interesting way to have couples talking to each other).

What do you think of the Marker? How would you feel if you walked out of the shower in your hotel room and saw an ad? Impressed by their cleverness? Or just creeped out and pissed off..?

The copy in the image above reads:

The challenge: Millions of body lotion samples are never opened; they remain glued to ads in magazines, disappear inside handbags, or get thrown in the bin. What could we do to make sure this does not happen to Dove Body Milk?

The idea: Catch the customers when they’re naked: in hotel bathrooms! Therefore we developed a mailing for hotel managers and sent them the „Dove Magic Mirror Marker“: They were to write a magic Dove message for their guests on the bathroom mirror. The marker uses a de-mister fluid that the writing appears when the mirror steams up. A real moment of surprise and exactly the moment to give Dove Body Milk a try.