Unilever Foods appoints social-first agency to drive influencer strategy

Global FMCG giant Unilever has appointed social-first agency Samy to develop and activate an international influencer strategy for its food business. Its food brands include Hellmann’s, Knorr, Aromat and Robertsons. 

This is in line with a decision taken in March 2025 by Unilever, when new CEO Fernando Fernandez announced plans to move to a social-first advertising strategy. The company said at the time it intended to spend 50% of its media budget on social channels and would increase influencer marketing investment twenty-fold. 

Samy will use its proprietary Maia platform to provide Unilever with access to more than 120-million influencers worldwide and related performance data, and will build systems around deployment and measurement. 

Embed brands authentically in local culture 

“At Unilever, it’s about going where the consumers are and building ‘desire at scale’ – growing our brands by embedding them authentically in culture. This means leaning strongly into creators who can help our stories travel further, feel more authentic and resonate more deeply,” Meg Bass, Global Media Manager at Unilever Foods, says in a statement. 

“Working with Samy will allow us to combine technology and data with deep knowledge of the whole social ecosystem, leading to more informed decisions around where and how we activate creator partnerships across markets.  

“This will give our markets a clearer structure for working with creators, while still allowing them to respond to local behaviours, tastes and cultural context in a way that feels credible.” 

Samy will use a ‘glocal’ team to deliver intelligence and insights that will help keep Unilever’s content culturally relevant in 13 markets: the US, UK, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, Germany, France, Poland, Pakistan, Argentina, Canada and Turkey. 

Adds Sonsoles Piñeiro Kruik, Chief Growth Officer at Samy: “With teams working across continents, we’ll bring hyper-local intelligence into a shared global system, enabling Unilever to orchestrate influencer activity at scale while ensuring creator partnerships are shaped by the realities of each local market, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.”