2024 OmniShopper Awards: Collaborative: Brand-Retailer

Collaborative: Brand-Retailer
(Long-Term Partnership)

Campaign: Pick Me Ups

Brands: Dove, Dove Men + Care, TRESemme, Nexxus, Shea Moisture, Vaseline, Axe, Degree & Love, Beauty and Planet (Unilever)

Retail partner: Walgreens

Agency/Solution Providers: Walgreens Advertising Group (primary), Arc Worldwide (secondary)

Everyone can use a pick-me-up throughout the course of her day, and that includes finding moments of pleasure from beauty, personal care and wellness products. It could be an extra treatment for your hair or skin when you skip that shower, or else just a touch of lip balm or lipstick to help brighten the day.

Unilever harnessed this idea in a “Pick Me Ups” campaign aimed at motivating Gen X and Millennial female shoppers to make more visits to Walgreens, and ultimately to shape perceptions of the retailer as a destination in which self-care equals healthcare.

The program leveraged digital tactics across Walgreens’ retailer media network to drive awareness and conversion. A key component included programmatic display ads targeting customers who had the strongest likelihood of buying Dove products based on intent signals. The creative and messaging informed shoppers on how Unilever products make them feel their best and promoted offers to encourage purchase. 

Unilever also piloted new Criteo display ads on Walgreens.com and further leveraged this tactic in a second wave of the campaign dedicated to men’s grooming products. In addition, paid social media and influencer content amplified Unilever’s stock-up offers and highlighted ways to conveniently shop Walgreens (e.g., delivery in under an hour). Push notifications intercepted shoppers in-store to highlight offers and encourage them to treat themselves to uplifting products in the moment. 

Strong social engagement drove awareness and helped to establish Walgreens as a destination for beauty and personal care products. Programmatic display returned the highest ROAS, while Unilever’s influencers beat benchmarks by 57% to help further drive conversions.

Collaborative: Brand-Retailer
(Single Activation)

Campaign: It All Starts Aqui

Brands: Palmolive, Fabuloso, Colgate, Suavitel, Irish Spring & Soft Soap (Colgate-Palmolive)

Agency/Solution Provider: Arc Worldwide

Many Hispanic Americans have nostalgic childhood memories of Colgate-Palmolive brands. They strive to be role models for their families and communities in a way that celebrates their heritage, while setting the stage for future generations by fostering a healthy family, home, planet and self. 

“It All Starts Aqui” was designed to remind Hispanic Walmart shoppers of the place Colgate-Palmolive products have always had in their home, and will continue to have into the future. 

To boost awareness and engagement with Hispanic households, the campaign featured custom illustrations that were developed by Hispanic artists and showcased Colgate-Palmolive products in an authentic Hispanic home. During Hispanic Heritage Month, the activations were brought to life across various platforms, including in-store signage, Walmart home page and app, programmatic display, social media channels and pop-up events in Walmart parking lots. 

Display ads heightened awareness of the Colgate-Palmolive portfolio and targeted shoppers ready to purchase, while social media channels increased awareness of the parking lot events, creating excitement and buzz. 

Offsite display media that was served to either brand-lapsed or brand-predicted buyers was the most effective targeting strategy. Overall, these audiences averaged a $12.99 ROAS, led by sales from Suavitel, Fabuloso and Colgate home care products. Most notably, the campaign achieved a 31% sales lift from halo items and a 38% sales lift from featured items. Total incremental sales were driven from 50% new buyers of halo items and 69% new buyers of featured items.

Campaign: H-E-B Not Your Knorr-dinary Drive-Thru

Brand: Knorr (Unilever)

Retail partner: H-E-B

Agency/Solution Provider: Arc Worldwide

Knorr was a well-known pantry staple among H-E-B shoppers, particularly with Hispanic households, but sales were struggling. The brand faced stiff competition in the sides and bouillon categories, and external pressures made it increasingly difficult for H-E-B shoppers to deviate from their already-tight budgets. These shoppers had become convinced that buying nutritious food couldn’t be easily prepared or good for their wallets.

Enter the “Not Your Knorr-dinary Drive-Thru” pop-up experience at H-E-B. It had all the trappings of a fast-food restaurant — but with value meals that were both convenient and nutritious. H-E-B partnered with local Texas foodies to create a Secret Taste Combo Menu and replicated drive-thru features including window posters, an 8-foot neon sign, shopping carts wrapped to look like cars and uniformed employees wearing headsets who took orders from shoppers.

Knorr drove traffic with billboards, in-store radio, email and a dedicated landing page. A guerrilla marketing tactic created $4 bills and distributed them around town, inviting visitors to redeem them for taste combos at the event. A QR code invited value-minded shoppers to enter a sweepstakes to win groceries for a year while they waited in line. Recipe cards accompanied the entrees, making it easy to recreate the meals at home.

Knorr delivered the brand’s highest single-day sales at an H-E-B store for the entire year and outpaced the next highest day by 75%. On that same day, total unit sales were up 161% over the previous 12 weeks. Across H-E-B stores, sales rose online by 19.6% and in-store by 16.4%.