MARKETING STRATEGY

Unilever’s new boss will spend more on social media and influencers

By our African Marketing Confederation News Team | 2025

Incoming CEO says brand messaging is viewed with growing suspicion by consumers and having others speak for your brand is ‘very important’.

As a new CEO takes the helm of Unilever, the global FMCG giant, he has promised to shake up marketing and brand strategies within the group, pledging to put more focus on social media strategies and the use of influencers. 

 

Fernando Fernandez was a surprise appointment last month following the shock departure of Hein Schumacher, who was CEO for less than two years before being sacked by the board over his slow pace of reform of the consumer goods company. 

Photo: Sean Biehle via Flickr

Unilever is in the process of implementing a restructuring plan that includes cutting more than 7,000 jobs and separating from its ice-cream business. It has a portfolio of more than 400 global brands – including the likes of Dove, Knorr, Hellmann’s, Vaseline and Omo. 

 

In a ‘fireside chat’ with an analyst from Barclays Bank following his appointment, Fernandez said Unilever would be moving to a social media-first advertising model and increasing its spending on social media platforms from 30% to 50% of the company’s total advertising spend. 

 

Consumers are suspicious of brand messaging 

 

“Today brands are, by default, suspicious. Messages of brands coming from corporations are suspicious messages,” Fernandez is reported to have said in his Barclays chat. “Creating marketing activity systems in which others can speak for your brand at scale is very important. 

 

“Influencers, celebrities, TikTokers, etc. There are 19,000 zip codes in India, there are 5,764 municipalities in Brazil. I want one influencer in each of them. In some of them, I want 100, but at least I want one in each of them.” 

 

Fernandez added that he would look towards artificial intelligence (AI) for support. “It requires a machine of content creation very different from the one we have had in the past. AI plays a very important role in that, but I’m absolutely committed. 

 

“This is one of the things I will drive like hell in the company in the next few years. Desirability at scale and marketing activity systems of ‘others say’ at scale will be the fundamental principles of our marketing strategy. I’m 100 percent behind that,” he said. 

 

According to a report in the London-based Financial Times newspaper, Unilever’s marketing approach has typically associated its products with wider purposes, such as Hellmann’s mayonnaise tackling food waste or Dove soap denouncing toxic beauty standards.  

 

However, the tactic has lost traction as consumers have increasingly turned to online influencers instead of corporations for recommendations, the newspaper stated.

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