Two billion people use a Unilever product on any given day. Last year, Unilever spent $7.6 billion on brand and marketing activities.
For a long time now, Unilever has been promoting its socially responsible side beneath the sound of its brand advertising, packaging and business activities. In November last year, social responsibility by Unilever took the microphone.
The TVC, Bright Future Speeches, was Unilever’s first corporate ad as part of the ongoing. It was not like a corporate ad. It was a film “to shine a light on young people who have new visions for a brighter future.” The core ad was supported by eight individual films each exploring the vision of one young person. The films were aired to more than 300 million people in less than one month.
The ad closes with the Unilever "U" and the logos of Lipton, Knorr, Hellmann's, Suave and Dove.
"These brands are linked to our Unilever social mission overall, and they are our biggest brands in the US, that provide scale to make change possible," Unilever explained.
It is the U that is significant, although it was not noticed at the time. With chief executive officer, Paul Polman, as its guiding force, Unilever intends to double the size of its business but also to reduce its environmental impact before 2020. And to that end, it is now putting its U logo on all its products and marketing pieces as a "trust mark of sustainability…a way of telling consumers that any product with the U is the right choice for the planet."
The U is a visual mnemonic for Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, that was launched in 2010. This covers all Unilever brands in all markets, but also addresses the sourcing of raw materials, all packaging and supply chains and the way consumers use products—everything from putting an end to deforestation by Lipton tea farmers to reducing the amount of hot water a family uses to do the laundry with Surf detergent.
“Our brands that most engage with our sustainability and social purpose plan are growing faster," reported Keith Weed, Unilever’s chief marketing officer. In the last three years, these brands have achieved an average 10% annual increase in sales.
Of course, Unilever benefits by doing good. And it is hard to ignore the fact that the areas in which Unilever’s beneficence is most abundant, the so-called emerging nations, are the areas of most rapid growth. According to McKinsey, the GDP of emerging markets will overtake that of developed economies by 2020, with their middle class adding more than 1 billion consumers. And according to Nielsen, nearly three quarters of online consumers in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa are willing to pay more for products "from companies that are committed to positive social and environmental impact.” In first world countries, that hovers around 40%.
