Unilever
Letting Go
At a time when most big marketers are trying to figure out how to let go of old school
media strategies, one of the biggest, global packaged-goods giant Unilever, released all 10 digits at once. It took the plunge with the kind of freefall abandon that surprised many of its peers but is
generating the kind of results that are encouraging others to follow suit. The speed, creativity and passion with which Unilever has embraced the shift from passive, one-way push media to digital,
interactive and branded content that puts the consumer at the center, defies the long-held industry adage that trying to get big marketers to change their ways is like trying to get the Titanic to
make a U-turn in the face of an iceberg.
What began as some daring experiments with a few select brands has led to a shift in the way Unilever thinks about media across
all its brands. Leading the media reinvention has been Babs Rangaiah, the company's director of global communication planning, who has been challenging roster agencies like MindShare and Ogilvy to
rethink everything they know. For helping to teach big marketers some agile new tricks, Media magazine recognizes Unilever as its Media Client of the Year for 2007.
At its core, the Unilever revolution draws on two of the concepts popularized by author Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point and Blink. Its Dove brand integration with NBC's The
Apprentice in 2004, for example, demonstrated the Tipping Point principle, and was the first time Unilever truly released control of one of its brands. From that point on, Gladwell's other
principle - Blink - became a driving force in its underlying strategy, as the Unilever media team moved quickly to push boundaries internally in order to create cutting-edge programs and externally to
ride the crest of the Media 2.0 wave.
Some of the best examples of Unilever's leadership and innovation involved consumer-generated media and advertising campaigns,
including:
Dove Cream Oil: A contest for consumers to create a TV commercial culminated with the winning entry being announced during the telecast of the Academy
Awards. The accompanying Web site provided consumers with brand assets and editing tools to create their own commercials.
Wisk: As part of a "Messiest Kid"
contest and leveraging a partnership with Time Warner, moms submit photos of their kids that get uploaded onto the cover of Sports Illustrated for Kids.
Axe: World's Dirtiest Film competition in partnership with Jimmy Kimmel and collegehumor.com. Consumer generated content showing people getting dirty so they can then get clean with Axe
Shower Gel.
"Given the dramatic changes affecting the consumer and media landscape, and how difficult it is to break through with traditional advertising, we've tried
to develop more innovative plans that reflect our consumers' changing behaviors and media habits in order to truly engage them. As a result, many of these campaigns have been 'centered' in the digital
space," says Rangaiah.
With each envelope it has pushed, Unilever has come back and pushed even harder, inviting agencies and media company partners to take equal risks
in exchange for upside rewards. In 2007, Unilever created a near total convergence of media and marketing - campaign after campaign harnessed new media while manipulating traditional media in new
ways.