Unilever is to launch its first corporate brand campaign
to trumpet its approach to sustainability and the impact its brands have had
encouraging behaviour change.
Unilever chief marketing
officer Keith Weed told Marketing Week that the consumer campaign is the latest
stage of the company’s 10-year Sustainable Living Plan, which is an attempt to
embed sustainability into the organisation and its brand communications.
The activity, likely to launch
before the end of the year, will detail how the initiative impacts the company’s
brands. It will encourage change towards more sustainable consumer
behaviour.
Advertisements will engage
consumers with the story about what is “different and unique” about Unilever,
says Weed.
He adds he wants Unilever’s
corporate brand to be a ‘quality mark’ that stands for sustainability.
“I don’t want people to have to
worry about whether this product has a better sustainability profile than
another, I want people to know that Unilever is leading edge in this area and if
you see the Unilever ‘U’ logo on an ad or on a product, that gives you the
reassurance that we’ve done our homework.”
Weed says: “We’ve already
started through digital to create a story and get a ground swell, but most
importantly there to be substance to it. I’m not interested in a classic
‘marketing’ in inverted commas, campaign, what I’m interested in is building up
what unique and different about Unilever.”
Unilever introduced its
corporate logo to advertising and packaging in the UK in 2009. It has since
appointed Ogilvy & Mather to handle the global creative account for the
corporate brand and promoted former UK vice-president of UK food marketing, Paul
Nevett to oversee its corporate brand strategy in FMCG Rival Procter &
Gamble launched its first corporate brand campaign in 2011.
The company’s Sustainable
Living Plan launched in 2011. It included commitments to halve the environmental
impact of products and source 100% of agricultural raw materials in a
sustainable way.
At an event to mark the first
year of the plan this week, Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman admitted that the company
is finding it difficult to make progress on changing consumer habits. It has, he
claims, made “excellent progress in some areas and exceeded some of its targets
on more tangible goals such as sustainable sourcing and nutrition.
For example, Unilever has
developed Comfort One Rinse laundry detergent to reduce the water needed to hand
wash clothes in developing countries, but has found that consumers have taken
longer to adopt new behaviours and actually use less water and so there is more
to do to educate consumers in how they use products to reduce the environmental
impact.
Separately, Unilever has
introduced new corporate brand livery to ensure a consistent brand look across
all its corporate communications channels.
Unilever claims on sustainability, one year on
- 68% increase in share price last year following launch of Sustainable Living Plan.
- Improve the health and wellbeing of 135 million people through hand washing, oral care and safe drinking water activity.
- 60% increase in households using Unilever’s One Rinse products to 12.5 million
- On target to meet 50 of the original 58 time-bound goals.
