Dove is already known in the US via its range of skincare and deodorants range. Dove Hair Care is already a market leader in Europe and Asia, where it is the number one brand in Taiwan, Korea and Japan.
Unilever will launch the brand with a national broadcast and print campaign, although further details have not been revealed. In the UK, Dove's advertising has relied on women talking to camera and offering testimonials on Dove's effectiveness. Ogilvy & Mather handles the creative for Dove in the UK.
Dove is among the linchpins of Unilever's five-year "Path to Growth" strategy, which has seen it start to cull low-performing brands and put the savings into the aggressive extension of core brands.
Jon Achenbaum, general manager of the hair business team, said: "We are uniquely positioned to harness the power of our Dove brand and our category experience to create hair care products that respond in a very differentiated way to consumers' needs."
Dove was launched almost 50 years ago as a beauty bar, and in North America it takes the number one spot in the bar and body wash categories. Unilever first expanded the Dove brand in 1999 with the deodorant extension, which takes the number two spot among female deodorant brands in the US.
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