DADS, The Movie
Dove Men+Care partnered with Ron Howard and Bryce Dallas Howard to create DADS, a feature-length documentary exploring modern fatherhood. Bringing attention to the critical role fathers play and the importance of paternity leave, this film is an unfiltered and humorous look at being a modern dad. Our team was approached by Dove Men+Care to pitch against Ogilvy and Vice’s Virtue –and won.
As lead writer, I was responsible for crafting the branded content that became the film, from writing interview questions for the celebrity cast, to creating social media buzz to tease the release.
Dove Men+Care’s mission was simple: to champion paternity leave and make it accessible for men everywhere.
The Launch
Prior to the release of DADS, The Movie, Dove Men+Care launched its mission to champion paternity leave for men everywhere by tapping celebrity dad and co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian. Alexis appeared on morning shows across the country, speaking out about his support for paternity leave and Dove Men+Care’s $1million fund to help provide paternity leave for expecting dads. Fathers everywhere could apply for a $5,000 grant from the brand to help support their choice to take paternity leave.
Filming
On the set of DADS, we began filming interviews of Bryce & Ron, to create branded trailers and online content that raised awareness for the film and Dove Men+Care’s paternity leave initiative.
Dadmojis
Looking to bring our mission to the web, we noticed there’s a place where dad’s role as caregiver is routinely overlooked — emoji keyboards. For pre-launch of DADS The Movie, we wanted to show a more inclusive representation of today’s modern family, creating a full-range of modern dadmojis. Next, a comprehensive, 8-page petition was written and submitted to Unicode, asking for inclusive caregiver representations to include dads on emoji keyboards. Then we brought the conversation to Twitter and Instagram to ask people what they thought.
And in January 2020, our rallying cry was heard.
Unicode instituted an emoji for dads feeding their babies.
DADS Swag
As a way to say “thank you” to all those involved in the film, we created a range of DADS Swag. Complete with a custom Ronmoji for Ron, and matching cap.
