Unilever is present process a advertising and marketing transformation because it strikes to a social media and influencer-heavy technique.
The plan to place 50% of its advertising and marketing price range into influencers was first introduced by CEO Fernando Fernandez in April, who stated the corporate was prioritising the ‘4Vs’ of social media: number of creators, quantity, virality and velocity of content material.
Nuria Hernandez, CMO of Unilever’s private care division – which counts Dove and up to date acquisition Dr Squatch in its portfolio – tells Advertising and marketing Week the assertion made by Fernandez earlier this 12 months was him “brazenly stating to the skin world one thing that’s already occurring inside Unilever”.
Unilever is present process a advertising and marketing transformation because it strikes to a social media and influencer-heavy technique.
The plan to place 50% of its advertising and marketing price range into influencers was first introduced by CEO Fernando Fernandez in April, who stated the corporate was prioritising the ‘4Vs’ of social media: number of creators, quantity, virality and velocity of content material.
Nuria Hernandez, CMO of Unilever’s private care division – which counts Dove and up to date acquisition Dr Squatch in its portfolio – tells Advertising and marketing Week the assertion made by Fernandez earlier this 12 months was him “brazenly stating to the skin world one thing that’s already occurring inside Unilever”.
Nevertheless, she believes the CEO despatched a “very clear message” to Unilever’s advertising and marketing groups about what the enterprise is “anticipating from them”.
“I used to be fortunate sufficient to hitch my function when this transformation had already began, however was very a lot within the preliminary steps,” says Hernandez.
She turned CMO on the finish of 2023 after nearly two years as common supervisor for the private care division in Latin America.
In complete, she has spent nearly 30 years on the enterprise, after becoming a member of in 1997 as a analysis and growth challenge supervisor. For a 12 months and a half, she has been working along with her entrepreneurs to “perceive” what they want “to make the transformation occur”.
The main target has been on functionality, instruments and upskilling to make sure the change in advertising and marketing technique “isn’t stunning to them”, Hernandez explains, however one thing they “embrace as a possibility to study and develop”.
“I might say that a lot of our extra junior crew members, they had been very enthusiastic about [social media] as a result of that is what they do of their private lives, they usually had been seeing that they will additionally use all their studying and expertise to make it occur with their manufacturers,” she provides.
In all probability the largest problem for a corporation like Unilever, due to our measurement [is] altering the entire ecosystem on how we accomplice with our businesses, how we use know-how, and the way scale up on AI and different instruments.
Nuria Hernandez, Unilever
For any enterprise, present process a advertising and marketing transformation takes numerous exhausting work. For a enterprise of Unilever’s measurement, it’s a serious enterprise.
“In all probability the largest problem for a corporation like Unilever, due to our measurement [is] altering the entire ecosystem on how we accomplice with our businesses, how we use know-how, and the way scale up on AI and different instruments that assist make this very completely different work, which is far more complicated,” she says.
Shifting to new methods of working is a “problem” the crew are nonetheless addressing, however Hernandez believes they’re in “an excellent place” in comparison with 18 months in the past when the interior transformation started.
By way of how the entrepreneurs now work, talking “social-first, talking about content material creators, talking about influencer advertising and marketing, is an on a regular basis dialog”.
“It’s not one thing we need to do, however actually one thing we’re doing,” she provides.
Shifting forwards
A concern of management and “understanding what we’re doing is a mission” had been the reason why Unilever was “not transferring” ahead, says Hernandez. In response to this concern, the FMCG large has “developed very clear instruments” to make sure it understands the return on funding from this “new approach of doing advertising and marketing”.
“We now have monitoring to grasp the affect of all that on model fairness and the way our model long-term worth is being created or not via all this,” she says.
The enterprise can also be wanting intently on the short-term affect, Hernandez provides, from likes on posts to how a lot “fandom” its work is creating, and the way persons are participating with the manufacturers of their communities.
With this monitoring in place, Unilever is adapting its channel combine from marketing campaign to marketing campaign, relying on what’s resonating with completely different audiences.
There are “nice” instruments in place to make sure that inside influencer advertising and marketing, Unilever can “learn” the ROI and the model creation worth as a lot because it did “up to now”, she provides. This implies an elevated give attention to information, instruments, know-how and AI.
“Prior to now, we had been studying the affect of our one TV promoting marketing campaign. Right this moment, we’re studying the worth of 300 completely different belongings working in parallel on completely different channels,” Hernandez notes. “However nonetheless, we’re capable of learn the efficiency of them and the worth creation, and modify them at a speedy time to actually guarantee we’re driving the return.”
That is one thing Unilever’s high marketer Esi Eggleston Bracey expanded on in Cannes final month.
“It’s utilizing creators’ voices to specific the model. It’s not a one off piece of inventive any longer. At Unilever, I speak about we’re transferring from that previous mannequin of a one-off broadcast to getting many individuals to speak with many different individuals in your behalf. It’s the one approach,” she stated.
Relating to the worldwide form of the advertising and marketing operate, Unilever desires to make sure it’s “higher linked than ever on world versus native”, says Hernandez.
“In lots of instances, tradition occurs at an area stage and you want to guarantee that you’re empowering your native groups in all places on the planet to grasp the model effectively and be capable of react to tradition in a approach that the model desires to indicate up,” she provides.
Advertising and marketing Week will publish a follow-up interview with Hernandez about her profession from common administration to CMO and Unilever’s wider advertising and marketing technique.
