Brand News: Unilever's Bold Pivot

Unilever is making a strategic shift toward influencer marketing instead of traditional advertising. This massive consumer goods company is responding to increasing consumer skepticism by collaborating with authentic voices to promote their vast range of products.

• Unilever owns countless FMCG products from personal care items to foods
• Traditional brand advertising is becoming less effective at building consumer trust
• The company is now working with influencers like Sophie Hinchcliffe to reach consumers
• This signals a major industry trend toward personalized, relatable content
• A blended approach of traditional and digital channels with user-generated content is showing good results
• Even the biggest spenders on traditional advertising are finding they need to invest more in social channels
• Brand studies are showing insufficient lift from traditional advertising alone

Thanks for tuning in to Brand News Today!

The Digital Horizons Podcast is hosted by:

James Walker - Managing Director WHD
Brian Hastings - Managing Director Nous

Chapters

• 0:09 Welcome to Brand News Today
• 0:15 Unilever's Shift to Influencer Marketing
• 1:09 Strategic Investment Explained
• 1:32 Traditional vs. Digital Brand Strategies
• 3:04 Episode Wrap-up

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome back to Brand News Today. Brian has a very exciting article for us to run through. Yeah, this is a big shift from one of the big, big super companies, let's call it in the market Unilever's shift to influencer marketing. So these guys I would have thought as being the forever traditional, focused brand advertisers. Unilever has just about every product you can think of on the shelves FMCG products, from deodorants to body washes to hairsprays, all the way through to foods and ice creams and cereals. It's got everything. Their job is to slowly but surely build the brand's presence of all of their products in the hearts and minds of customers so that when they're at the supermarket shelf, they choose theirs over another product. They're not generally looking for online purchases. This is not a performance marketing strategy, is it? Yeah, that's right. So it's a brand. It's a company that relies on the development of brand. So what are they doing?

Speaker 1: 1:09

Unilever has strategically increased its investment in influencer marketing to connect with consumers, who are increasingly sceptical of traditional advertising. By collaborating with influencers like Sophie Hinchcliffe, unilever aims to leverage authentic voices to promote its products, reflecting a broader industry trend towards personal, personalized and relatable content. This is in the Times UK. Do you know who that is. No, miss Soph, no, no, I just referenced it because it referenced it. Probably not the ideal audience for Miss Hinch or whatever her name is, but this is huge news from a company signaling its shift away not completely, but its need to invest significantly in the trusted, user-generated content and social platforms. Because they're finding from all their spending like these are the guys who are doing the most of that traditional brand advertising TV print, outdoor, out of home they're finding it's being seen as skeptical and it's not shifting the lever for brand perception and relatability and trust. This is huge news for me because I'm finding, with brand campaign activity, a blend between traditional and digital channels and trusted user-generated content is getting a really good result. But hearing the ones spending the most probably in market across the world are finding that it's not getting their brand studies, it's not showing in their brand studies to have enough of a lift and they need to invest more in these other social channels, is huge news.

Speaker 1: 2:43

Okay, well, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Okay, I'm glad you're interested. Thanks for your voter support there, james. Very exciting stuff. Sorry, I don't do any brand. We don't do any brand stuff, obviously, so I wouldn't know how to measure it. I guess over time we'll tell whether that strategy actually works for them. I'm sure it will, yeah, and I think these guys are spending a lot of money measuring it. So if they're saying it's time for a shift, it's interesting news. That's brand news for this week. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for watching.