Unilever's Blueprint for Turning Impressions Into Affiliation
Unilever is working to reach audiences through a strategy it has dubbed "desire at scale," where brands essentially plant themselves at the center of culture to spur sales.
According to the CPG company, this approach extends beyond meeting consumer needs. Instead, its objective was to inspire cravings and nurture personal affiliations with brands such as Dove and K18 Hair. Unilever did that by meeting audiences where they are and leveraging the creators they trust on YouTube.
A Lift From Swift
One way Dove used YouTube to reach female shoppers was timed to the buzz surrounding Taylor Swift's "Life of a Showgirl" album release.
Aware that Swifties comprise a massive fandom championing positivity and sisterhood — values aligned with Dove's ethos — the brand aligned its campaign with the album release. Dove embarked on a multipronged YouTube takeover that included securing 25% of the ad inventory on Swift's official channel, leveraging premium YouTube Music playlist targeting to reach fans. It also deployed a high-impact YouTube Masthead to engage women during the album's peak launch window.
The result: A campaign that reached nearly 30 million women, utilizing the masthead as a catalyst for upper-funnel metrics — specifically ad recall and brand consideration.
YouTube is ranked as the No. 1 platform for watching creator content (per Google and Kantar). Creators' loyal and attentive fan bases position them to be true tastemakers.
“Partnering with YouTube has helped Unilever grow the ROI of our investments on the platform more than 50% year over year on some of our core brands, and it continues to help us build a scalable model for major cultural moments," Ryo Yokoi, chief media and marketing capability officer for North America at Unilever, told the Think with Google research and insights platform.
Building on the campaign's success, Unilever is looking into other specialized communities where its brands bring value, including the NFL, March Madness, the Oscars and the World Cup.
Promoting K18 Hair
Unilever in turn teamed with beauty creators on a YouTube Shorts campaign to promote its biology-first haircare brand K18 Hair. The K18 Hair team wanted to see how well creator-led storytelling could raise awareness and consideration as opposed to simply extending reach.
They ran a head-to-toe test comparing YouTube Shorts with video ads on another social platform, using the same 60-second assets, budgets and targeting as they partnered with established beauty creators who had audiences on both platforms.
The result is a campaign that drove measurable lift in brand recognition. It outperformed the unnamed competitor, achieving a 25% lower cost-per-view with an audience 20% more likely to continue watching. Also, more than half stayed on for at least 15 seconds.
This approach has led Unilever to determine that reach may be a commodity, but cultural proximity gives a competitive advantage. To surpass passive impressions and foster sustained brand desire, Unilever suggests marketing leaders consider three strategic shifts.
Capitalize on cultural windows: Move beyond simply being present and strive for strategic engagements. Brands should identify high-intent cultural peaks, such as the Dove-Swift alignment, and utilize high-impact formats such as the YouTube Masthead to aggregate when and where the conversation is most dense.
Capture the "trust premium" via creator co-authorship. Leverage creators as trusted tastemakers as opposed to mere content distributors.
Build a unified approach. Instead of siloing efforts, sync paid media with creator partnerships around a single idea. Brands treating YouTube as a unified ecosystem will have a distinct advantage over a series of one-off flights.
