Have Dove made the strangest sponsorship story of the year?
In a sports marketing first, Dove Advanced Care Antiperspirant will take the court at the 2025 US Open as the tournament’s Official Underarm Sponsor. Yep, you read that right. But beyond the headline-grabbing novelty of the sponsorship is a calculated brand play that links Dove’s long-running “Real Beauty” platform with one of the most visible stages in tennis.
The activation centres on a nationwide casting call to find an Underarm Ambassador, a charismatic fan who will attend the US Open as Dove’s on-the-ground creator. The deal is structured as a “N.U.L.” agreement (Name, Underarm, Likeness) a cheeky nod to the Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) rights movement in US college sport. The numbers are modest compared with top-tier sports deals, but the assets are pointed.
Why this works for Dove
Underarms might seem like niche territory for sports sponsorship, but in tennis they’re in almost constant view: every serve, fist pump and celebratory arm-raise puts them on display. Dove’s positioning (“serve looks, not sweat”) leans into the humour while still plugging product benefits like 72-hour sweat and odour protection.
From a sponsorship strategy perspective, this is precise alignment: the brand is matching a product truth (sweat and confidence) with a property where those themes are unavoidable. The result is an activation that is both highly ownable and visually distinctive in broadcast and social media coverage.
Shifting to social-first sponsorship
Unilever, Dove’s parent, is shifting heavily into social-first marketing, with a goal to allocate 50% of spend to digital channels. This US Open deal doubles as an influencer recruitment drive, part of a wider creator-led push that has seen Dove build campaigns entirely from user-generated content.
For sponsorship professionals, the lesson is less about “going weird” and more about owning a moment that competitors overlook. By leaning into a part of the athlete/fan experience that most brands ignore, Dove can dominate a small but memorable slice of the event narrative.
Whether or not the Underarm Ambassador becomes a viral sensation, the concept will be hard to miss and harder still to replicate without looking like an imitator. In a market saturated with logos and courtside boards, Dove’s bet is that a flash of humour, anchored in brand truth, will outlast the fortnight in Flushing Meadows.
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