Dove Men+Care Signs Karl-Anthony Towns to Sell Men on Slowing Down
Unilever''s men''s grooming brand is putting an NBA star at the centre of a plant-based body wash push — and pitching the shower as a reset button rather than a chore.
Men''s grooming advertising has spent forty years shouting. Dove Men+Care would rather whisper about fragrance.
The Unilever brand launched a campaign on Sunday featuring basketball star Karl-Anthony Towns, built around its Plant-Powered Body Wash collection and a claim about rhythm rather than performance: that grooming is when men get centred before work, after a workout, or on the way out for the night. Towns supplies the credibility line — "the right scent helps me lock in" — which frames scent as preparation, not vanity.
Strategically, it is the same move Dove has run in women''s care for two decades, ported across: sell an emotional benefit and let the formulation carry the rational one. The plant-based positioning does the heavy lifting on ingredients, while the athlete does the work of making self-care legible to a male shopper who still buys three-in-one out of habit.
Distribution tells you the ambition. The collection is available nationwide at Walmart, Amazon and Target — mass shelves, not specialty grooming, meaning the campaign has to convert at eye level and at scale.
The category is crowded with founder-led challengers and celebrity lines. Dove Men+Care''s counter is the least glamorous asset in the aisle and the hardest to build: trust.
Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →
The Brand Briefing
Liked this? Get five more every morning.
The Brand Briefing: the stories moving brands, in your inbox at 7am your time. Free.
