🎧 Dove Hacks Podcast Culture Via Y2K

How can big brands jump with style into the podcast game?

I've seen hundreds of brands sponsor podcasts, but they're usually boring ad reads lazily recited by the podcast hosts.

This new Dove campaign idea grabs my attention because it's an innovative way to work with podcasts and is based on Y2K culture.

Dove taps into the insight that Millennial women who grew up in the early 2000s lived through an era of especially toxic beauty standards, which led to Millennial women having the lowest body confidence of any generation.

And so they're launching a series of podcasts called "Why2K" throughout the month of July to help people reclaim their body confidence.

It's not an original podcast created by Dove but it's Dove partnering with three large podcasters to sponsor three different episodes related to body confidence.

I haven't seen a brand tie together separate podcasts into one overarching series and insert themselves natively.

Dove strategically picked three podcasts (How to Fail, Happy Place, and A Millennial Mind), each led by charismatic hosts who are good people to trust with emotional, reflective conversations about self-image.

🎯 This campaign works because it doesn’t just buy attention, it buys context. Dove isn’t shouting over the podcast but inserting itself within the conversation natively.

It’s a smart evolution in brand storytelling on podcasts. When done right, this kind of approach helps builds affinity and relevance.

Podcasts are a way to go deeper into long-form conversations about hot cultural topics and Dove has developed a shrewd new approach to brand - podcast integrations.