Lux named world's best-selling soap bar

Unilever’s iconic Lux soap brand has been named the most popular soap bar in the world, according to a major survey.

Historic roll callThe latest figures from market research company ACNielsen place Lux as the globe’s top-selling soap bar, with fellow Unilever brands Dove in second place and Lifebuoy coming fifth in the poll.

Since its launch in 1924, Lux has been endorsed by some of the world’s most beautiful women, with stars including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Brigitte Bardot appearing in some of its early advertising. In more recent years, celebrities such as Sarah Jessica Parker, Catherine Zeta Jones and Jennifer Lopez have also fronted Lux campaigns.

Reinventing an iconLong-established as an affordable, luxurious soap brand, Lux has retained its unrivalled popularity by continuing to evolve, embracing consumer trends for new sensual fragrances, colours and textures.

“We have to keep reinventing Lux – just like any beauty icon ­– to ensure we stay at number one,” explains Lux Global Vice President Sze Tian-Poh.

“We are bringing glamour into the world of the Lux consumer by provoking the senses – sight, smell and touch – like never before,” adds Lux Global Brand Director Pilar Calderon. “We want to strengthen the bond with current users while getting lapsed users to reappraise the brand.”

Five steps towards authentic sustainability communications (Guardian Sustainable Business)

In a world of mind-boggling complexity, convoluted interdependencies and interconnectedness it is often hard to know where to begin on developing communications for your business around sustainability. Below I've outlined the key steps of a journey that you can follow to develop campaigns with both credibility and authenticity.

Understand your 'Why?' It is amazing how easily businesses lose sight of their raison d'etre, their purpose. All too often they become utterly distracted by their 'what' – the product or service they provide. Perhaps one of the first fundamental questions we must ask ourselves at the start of any communications process is 'what is our why?'. This may sound like management-speak gobbleydegook, but it's actually your 'why' that people and ultimately customers are interested in, so it's vital that you understand it yourself in order to share it effectively and more widely. There's a great TED talk on The Golden Circles of why, how and what by Simon Sinek.

Know how far you want to go Do you want your business to be bleeding-edge, leading edge, a cautious follower or a lazy-ass foot-dragging recalcitrant in progressing towards sustainability? It's important to be realistic about the scale of your ambition - are you really going 'beyond petroleum'? Much as we'd all like to not everyone can do a Plan A like M&S and take an authentic step forward to lead debate and become an integrated, trusted and compelling sustainability brand. But that's OK. Knowing thyself and how far you can go over time will ensure you don't end up on wild flights of hopelessly improbable sustainability fantasy. Without doubt these will get you into all sorts of trouble.

Create yourself a vision What is your business going to look like as you plough that long hard muddy furrow to a more sustainable future? What do you hope to practically achieve? At Futerra we've long advocated the power of sizzling visions of a positive sustainable future, for as the slightly hoary old hotdog-flogging saying goes 'When selling the sausage, if you're not selling the 'sizzle', the sound, aroma and sense of anticipation, you're (literally) selling a dead pig'. A great way of galvanising your business around a vision is the crafting of a 'Big Hairy Audacious Goal' (BHAG) that excites, challenges and also scares people (just a little) in the scale and scope of its aspiration. The most famous BHAG of all time was President John F Kennedy's commitment to 'Put a man on the moon by the end of the decade', at which point most of NASA probably spat the dummy and thought 'how in the hell are we going to do that?!'. But they did it. And with less computing power than a modern washing machine. That's the power of a great BHAG. A good recent example of a powerful BHAG is the launch of Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan their stated intention to 'halve the environmental footprint of our products by 2020' is certainly hirsute and daring. Of course they've yet to clarify all the details of how it will be practically achieved – but the point is the grand ambition will now drive both efficiency and innovation right across the business.

Do something Communications are only as credible as the substantive, tangible initiatives that underpin them. Without these activities delivering real change you are putting yourself on an inexorable path to greenwashing. A CSR report is not an action in itself, though the objective, independent audit of business performance and impact they provide is crucial. Nor is a rebrand or a flowery new green logo enough, mentioning no names. Your change programme should embrace both good housekeeping and your core business, or it's simply window dressing whilst stocking the same old same old on the shelves inside the shop.

Communicate honestly So you know your 'why', you've decided how far you want to go, and you've drafted a compelling vision or something slightly bigger, hairier and altogether more audacious, and begun the implementation of your internal sustainability initiatives that will ultimately transform your business. So now you're ready to communicate openly, honestly and with authenticity. And you don't have to broadcast it.Communication via social media is an amazing opportunity to share your aims, experiences and achievements as the values on which it's built: transparency, ethics, innovation and collaboration, align well with those of sustainability itself. Engage your audiences in genuine dialogue and they will tell your authentic story for you. Of course if you want the ultimate advice on how to manage your brand image online then you could do worse than take the advice of Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales: 'Make stuff that doesn't suck'.

Ed Gillespie is Co-Founder of Futerra Sustainability Communications and tweets via @frucool

Unilever learns a viral lesson from P&G (Brand Republic)

When the chief marketing officer at Unilever (aka the world’s second biggest advertiser) speaks, we are obliged to listen. Indeed, Keith Weed doesn’t disappoint in our inaugural CMO Strategy interview as he makes a startling admission.

I’m not talking about Weed’s revelation that measuring social media’s ROI is ‘a big issue’ for Unilever, or that technology’s impact on marketing is so acute he felt the need to take a delegation of Unilever marketers on a Silicon Valley fact-finding mission last year. (Diageo marketers did exactly the same thing in 2010; hotel rooms in Palo Alto must be at a premium.)

But when Weed says he is ‘inspired’ by Old Spice’s The best your man could smell like’ campaign, from the house of arch rival Procter & Gamble, we know we have reached a new level in the battle for compelling content.

Yet what exactly does ‘content’ mean? The ASA is grappling with this issue as it seeks to police marketing claims on websites. Meanwhile Yahoo believes its content - footie highlights, user-friendly financial updates etc - is now its USP.

For the lazy marketer, content could mean plonking TV ads on YouTube, hoping for the free-media viral effect. Wasn’t Old Spice the most viral of ads in 2010?

It was, but what made Old Spice so viral is not just that it is human, but distinctive, memorable, and above all, funny and therefore the kind of content you want to share.

As Weed acknowledges, if content is treated as a cheap alternative to conventional advertising, it will remain passive and dull. On the other hand, if it captures our imaginations, it has the power of PR, but with the consumer as reporter and editor.

And with that kind of PR comes fame - and therefore, fortune.

Unilever's Top Global Media Executive Klauberg to Exit (Advertising Age)

Unilever's top global media executive, Laura Klauberg, will leave the company March 31 to return to the U.S. and pursue other interests, the company said today.

Ms. Klauberg, 55, who became senior VP-global media in 2007, led a global media review for the world's largest advertiser that early last year split duties in major markets between WPP's Mindshare, which handles the U.S., and Omnicom Media Group.

She'll take a short break before pursuing other opportunities, the company said in a statement. A successor hasn't yet been named.

Unilever has seen considerable change in the ranks of its top marketers in recent years since Procter & Gamble Co. and Nestle veteran Paul Polman became CEO in 2008, though most key positions have been filled from the ranks of Unilever rather than outside. Last year, Keith Weed succeeded Simon Clift as chief marketing officer, and Silvia Lagnado, who led the globalization of the Dove brand and later became exec VP-savory products, became chief marketing officer of Bacardi.

Ms. Klauberg couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

In a statement, Unilever credited her with growing investment in media innovation, such as developing branded content with media companies, new mobile applications, online video content, digital out-of-home and leverage of social media and other new digital platforms.

Ms. Klauberg rose through Unilever's U.S. personal-care business, joining through the Chesebrough-Ponds acquisition in the 1990s and ultimately becoming senior VP-marketing for the company's former prestige personal-care business, including Calvin Klein. She became VP-media for North America in 2005 and added Latin American media to her oversight last year.

Unilever reported $.7.2 billion in advertising and promotion spending in 2009 and $6.5 billion through the first three quarters of 2010 as the company sharply stepped up spending globally along with most competitors.

Marketers told to prepare for “game changing” digital shifts (Marketing Week)

Customer engagement through digital channels and platforms such as tablet computers is crucial for advertisers, top marketers have said at a conference on the future of the industry.

The Guardian’s Changing Advertising Summit in London in October heard that the mobile web will be particularly influential, given recent predictions that it would outstrip desktop internet use by 2014.

Unilever CMO Keith Weed indicated a need to treat digital and mobile channels with the same level of commitment as traditional media, pointing out that there are now more mobile phones than toilets in India.

“Companies like ours are all over television. Are we all over the digital space?” he said, adding that increasing digitalisation and globalisation of consumer markets has contributed to a revolution in media advertising.

Watch Weed at Change Advertising Summit 2010.

Ben Hughes, global commercial director and deputy CEO of the Financial Times, told delegates that 10% of new digital subscriptions to the newspaper’s content have come through its iPad app.

The app has had over 400,000 downloads since its launch in May this year, he adds.

“Those that do not yet believe the iPad is a game-changer need to think again,” he says.

The growth of campaigns across multiple marketing channels, he continues, means that integration needs to be “more than a catchphrase”.

Print also plays its part in this, with the FT’s strategy involving new print products as well as extending the reach of existing ones.

“Media owners need to be platform-agnostic and provide content to all channels where their customers consume it,” he says.

Facebook vice president (EMEA) Joanna Shields told the summit that social media will also replace some areas of traditional advertising,

She pointed out that more people are connecting with brands this way than via companies own websites, telling marketers: “With the money you save by not running a campaign on television, you need to hire a few people to take the pulse on Facebook.”

Two-way communication channels open all hours (Marketing Week)

Marketing Week joins forces with RAPP, plus international brands Philips and Eurostar, to explore how brands can best use the social media spaceto develop real relationships with real consumers.

The internet, and the explosion of social media networks, mean today’s consumers are always switched on. They are now using their own personal technology to become active advocates - or opponents - of multinational brands.

That means the brands around them have to remain switched on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, come rain, shine or even (as Eurostar will attest) snow.

Some brands are fearful of this change while others are embracing it. Keith Weed, chief marketing and communications officer at FMCG giant Unilever, has said that given the intense competition between brand owners to connect with customers via digital channels, it will be the innovators that benefit.

The digital edge will be in all areas of digital marketing, social, gaming, search and mobile. And, in fast-growing markets like India and China, mobile penetration will “transform the way companies engage with consumers”, says Weed, with the next 1 billion online users set to come from the mobile market.

Mobile has, without doubt, added fuel to the social media fire. In just three years, the development phase for a new handset has shrunk from 24 months to three. And it will get quicker, says RAPP chief creative officer Rik Haslam.

He also predicts the reach of mobile will extend. The penetration of smartphones in some European countries is already well beyond the 20% tipping point where products and services are deemed mainstream. In Spain, 37% of mobile subscribers now own a smartphone, and in Italy the figure is 33%. The UK’s penetration is 28%, on a par with the rapidly growing US market, according to Nielsen’s Mobile Snapshot report.

As Haslam explains: “The landscape has changed. We are living in a turbulent world. There is turbulence in terms of health, religion, environment, economics and population. But there is also technology turbulence. Never before has technology moved so fast.”

While some brands are embracing the “always on” consumer, many more are stuck at a crossroads. Many have dabbled with digital, but with consumers increasingly connected, are businesses really ready for them? Marketing Week, in association with RAPP, hosted a seminar in London to discuss how brands can embrace the “always on” consumer. Brands Eurostar and Philips joined the panel debate.

Top marketing strategies for 2011 (Marketing Week)

What will be your marketing strategy for 2011?

The government spending review in October last year, and the VAT rise to 20% that came into force on 4 January are prompting a shift in consumer spending. The rise in VAT will mean a £6.2bn increase overall in household spend, while discretionary income will drop by £2.3bn in 2011, with the average UK household £225 a year out of pocket.

Research by The Futures Company points towards the emergence of a new, recession-forged consumer mentality. The global trends consultancy reported in October 2010 that 57% of consumers agree with the statement “I find myself thinking twice before making even the smallest day-to-day purchase”. Below, marketers suggest how they plan to adjust the way they communicate with consumers.

The overall challenge for marketers in 2011 will still be the idea of getting integration right in a fragmented media with fragmented audiences, thinks Keith Weed, chief marketing officer at Unilever. “Unilever board colleagues understand the reasons for the shifts from traditional media to new and more social media. There isn’t a lot of convincing that needs doing. These are people who are all on iPads and understand the revolutions going on around us. It’s my job, however, to deliver the capability of the organisation, but in that respect I’m pushing against open doors. How fast we scale it is more about how quickly we can get our 5,700 marketers up to speed.”