MBR final low res

BRANDING
Malta Business Review
long live the Brand Activist
by Hanneke Faber
instilled in my peers and I the importance
of ‘distinctive benefits’, product superiority,
leading share of voice, and standing out at
‘the first moment of truth’. We’d better make
sure consumers knew Olay moisturized
more effectively than the next brand over;
and that Head & Shoulders removed 100%
of dandruff. We moved from brand to brand,
irrespective of personal conviction or usage.
In fact, many of my male peers worked
on Always, which always made for fun
conversations at the bar (‘so, tell me a bit
about what you do?’). Brand management
was a science that could be mastered. For
many years, it all worked like a charm.
Consumers, citizens, indeed people are
looking for more. Today, brands need
performance and genuine purpose to thrive.
But then, of course, technology started
spelling change, even disruption, for brands.
Between e-Commerce and social media, it
became easier for passionate entrepreneurs
and start-ups to claim spaces that big brands
had long left untouched. While it had been
virtually impossible for newcomers to land
on Walmart’s shelves before, suddenly
Amazon and Alibaba’s marketplaces offered
instant mass distribution to anyone who
wanted it.
Combined with savvy social media and
digital marketing, new brands popped up to
deliver on every new need big companies
had long considered ‘niche’. Organic? Check.
Vegan? Check. Ethnic? Local? High protein?
Check, check, and check…and those were
just the big ones. In turn, the big traditional
retailers took note, listing many more new
brands on their shelves.
Why purpose comes
first today
So, what are the big, established brand
companies to do? Today, I’m Unilever’s
President for Europe; and I believe that the
days of ‘managing’ brands are well behind
us. Washing shirts a little whiter or making
hair a bit shinier than the next brand is
still important, but performance by itself
is no longer enough. Consumers, citizens,
indeed people are looking for more. Today,
brands need both performance and genuine
purpose to thrive.
A great brand’s purpose is unlikely to be
vanilla (‘we help people be happy’); but
more likely to be a point of view that not
everyone will agree with (‘we should all be
vegans’). And that means change for the
people behind brands, too. To be competitive
with all those committed entrepreneurs
out there, brand builders at Unilever need
to take a stance, to create movements, to
evangelize and even sacrifice. In short, we
need brand activists.
"Today, Unilever's
fastest growing brands
are those with a clear
purpose. They grew
47% faster than the
rest of the portfolio
and delivered 70% of
company growth in
2017.
Today, Unilever's fastest growing brands
are those with a clear purpose. They grew
47% faster than the rest of the portfolio and
delivered 70% of company growth in 2017.
‘Peace, love and ice
cream’ magic
Take Ben & Jerry’s, acquired by Unilever in
2000. Of course, the brand makes fantastic
ice cream. Just try a pint of Chunky Monkey
or Cherry Garcia (or if you’re feeling
particularly peckish, the ‘Vermonster’, a
20-scoop bucket. Really). But the brand’s
true magic is in its purpose of ‘peace,
love and ice cream’. Peace and love are as
alive today as when Ben Cohen and Jerry
Greenfield opened their first parlour in a
garage in Burlington in 1978.
The brand team champions inclusion
for refugees and LGBTs, and fights
climate change. It sponsors Pride. It runs
programmes to help refugees integrate back
into work. You simply can’t work on Ben &
Jerry’s if you don’t believe in its purpose
100% and are ready to go to bat for it. The
Ben & Jerry’s brand has grown sales by
double digits for many consecutive years.
Keeping it real
Or take Dove, another big, global Unilever
brand with long track record of strong
growth. Dove makes terrific deodorants,
shower and skin care products. But what
truly differentiates Dove and the people
who work on the brand is their purpose:
raising women’s self-esteem. The Dove team
champions real beauty, doesn’t use digitally
distorted images, and has quietly spent
much time educating more than 20 million
girls around the world via programmes that
help them develop a positive relationship
with the way they look.
So have we got it all figured out at Unilever
in Europe? Of course not. Some of our
brands are still too ‘vanilla’. We need to
work harder on reducing the amount of
plastic we use. We still have brand portfolio
opportunities, despite exciting, purpose-led
acquisitions like Pukka herbs and Grom ice
cream. And sometimes, we run into heated
public debates when others don’t agree
with our points of view, or feel we don’t live
up to our own high standards. We welcome
those discussions.
But most importantly, we know that brand
activism is working for us. Today, Unilever’s
fastest growing brands are those with a clear
purpose. They grew 47% faster than the
rest of the portfolio and delivered 70% of
company growth in 2017. My father would
be proud. MBR
Credit: LinkedIn
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