Unilever - the full story

Developing global best practice

As a major advertiser, Unilever recognised that the effectiveness of the standard advertising model was diminishing in the face of media diversification – and the internal use of sponsorship was growing exponentially. At the same time, brand consolidation within the business was lending greater value to creating real brand connections with consumers.

The challenge for Unilever was in creating a coherent approach to sponsorship across more than 40 global brands operating in over 150 territories.

To address this need, Unilever interviewed 30 communications agencies to find one equipped with a strategic perspective on sponsorship, and capable of delivering around the world. Redmandarin were hired for our specialisation in sponsorship theory and practice and for our impartiality : we believe that sponsorship has an important role to play in marketing, but not for all brands and not for all business objectives.

The project was sponsored by Unilever’s Marketing Academy and the Global Head of Media, Alan Rutherford, and championed by Michael Brockbank, Vice President of Brand Communication. The question posed was: how should our brand teams think about and use sponsorship?

To ensure Unilever policy was rooted in commercial reality, we worked with over 60 brand teams around the world to consolidate core company thinking around sponsorship, and in particular around principles of measurability, accountability and selection. The process was lengthy, but heavily contributed to the results, by enabling us to gently seed and cross-pollenate between brand teams.

The results were published in the form of a training manual, incorporating best practice case studies from Unilever and other brands. The manual was distributed to 5000 Unilever marketers and taken to markets with a series of regional two day workshops delivered by Redmandarin in Brazil, Singapore, Dubai and Europe, working with 40 global brand teams including Lipton, Flora, Lynx, Birds Eye.

Three years later, we are still retained by Unilever, providing regional updates.