Unilever's Dove continues its streak of viral video successes with a new entry in advance of Father?s Day that depicts men first learning their partners are pregnant while simultaneously promoting the brand?s Men+Care line. 

The personal care brand has built a reputation over the past couple of years for leveraging online video to tug at consumers? heartstrings. The latest entry features various clips from the Internet of men finding out for the first time that they will be fathers. The compilation has quickly taken off through social media and offers the brand the ability to connect with consumers and secure its genuine brand image. 

"Video is an important aspect of most brand campaigns, which is why YouTube is so popular," said Danika Daly, CEO and president of Danika Daly Public Relations, New York. "People love videos, and piggybacking on a current event, holiday, or trend is important because it helps make the campaign become more viral because of the searchability. 

"Great content, keywords, real stories, and something that touches people emotionally, whether it is happy, sad, or funny are part of the recipe for a successful viral campaign," she said. 

The skin care brand is known for its authentic and empowering campaigns and advertisements. The viral video is an extension of that sentiment, but with an updated twist on it. 

It is much more effective for consumers to view content shared by friends on social media rather than the brand itself. Now that this video has caught on through social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, the consumers are in control of the conversation, which makes Dove?s image come across as more authentic. 

Consumers are highly aware of sponsored content and can be turned off to marketing that is pushed on to them from the brand. The fact that Dove has created a video that interests social media users enough to share it is highly beneficial to the brand?s image and sentiment. 

This video has all the makings of a viral campaign and features many aspects of a clip that is known to trend. 

Social media users enjoy watching videos that feature real people in real situations and future dads finding out their significant others are pregnant is a popular topic in videos today. Dove did all the work for these viewers, by searching and combing through video content that fits this category and choosing the best clips. 

Media publications have even picked up the video as well, which cements the popularity of the campaign even further.

The video comes in time for Father?s Day, which makes the subject matter more accurately connected to consumer?s mindsets as everyone has the holiday in the forefront of their mind. 

Dove is promoting its Men+Care line with this video and other advertisements coinciding with Father?s Day and this campaign. 

The compilation features 13 dads respectively discovering they will be fathers from their significant others in genuine personal footage. Dove emphasizes that real strength means not being afraid to show emotion and encourages consumers to continue the conversation via social media with the hashtag #RealStrength. 

Dove is known for its ongoing efforts to promote inner beauty and recently teamed up with Twitter to encourage women to speak positively of themselves, following a study that Twitter performed that found women are 50 percent more likely to make negative comments about themselves around the Oscars than the rest of the year (see more). 

Similar to Dove?s campaign, Greek yogurt brand Chobani recently rolled out the Love This Life campaign, which features short film-type ads throughout social media and leverages consumers? draw to narrative and emotional content to further instill an authentic all-natural brand image (see more). 

"This Dove Men's campaign works because it has a lot of the important components for a successful viral campaign," Ms. Danika said. "It seems to be a compilation of real YouTube videos of genuine reactions, it is capitalizing on Father's Day and it tugs at the heartstrings in a good way. 

"We all love an emotionally moving video," she said. 

Final take
Brielle Jaekel is editorial assistant at Mobile Marketer