Unilever Hyped Health to Refresh Brands
Reacting to growing consumer health concerns, Unilever has been pumping upthe nutritional benefits of its brands over the past two years.
At a New York seminar sponsored by the Promotion Marketing Association last week, Stephanie Kovner-Bryant, Unilever senior integrated marketing manager recounted the packaged goods company’s success on the basis of two casestudies.
Unilever’s overall corporate goal has been to help consumers make healthier choices and connect the concept of vitality with its products, Kovner-Bryant said. Its first move was to establish a Nutritional Enhancement Program to determine which of its 16,000 products fit U.S. health guidelines.
In the course of aligning its products with those guidelines, Unilever excised 15,000 tons of trans fat, 10,000 tons each of sugar and saturated fats and 2,000 tons of sodium from those products. It then created “Eat Smart” and “Drink Smart” programs to promote brands such as Lipton Tea, SlimFast, Hellman’s Mayonnaise and Ragu.
Earlier this year, Unilever struck an alliance with Bob Greene, Oprah Winfrey’s personal trainer, around the release of his best-selling book “The Best Life Diet.” Brands getting an imprimatur in Greene’s book–and endorsed by Winfrey–including Slim-Fast, Wish-Bone Salad Spritzers and Hellman’s Mayonnaise, were tagged with a “Best Life” logo.
In a rare marketing maneuver, Unilever teamed up with General Mills and Barilla to promote their respective products in a national marketing tour tied to Greene’s personal appearances to plug the book. “We got some great national PR,” said Kovner-Bryant. “It added some authenticity, the fact that we were going out together.”
Unilever put recipes using its products on Greene’s Web site, and ran a sweepstakes to win a workout with Greene, trying to “surround the consumer,” as Kovner-Bryant put it, with the book’s release.
Two years ago, Unilever boosted the appeal of Slim-Fast in another high-profile campaign around ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” series. In doing research seeking to make the brand more relevant, Unilever discovered its customers enjoyed dancing, so the show seemed a custom fit. “Slim-Fast needed some reviving,” Kovner-Bryant observed.
It created the “Slim-Fast Dance Challenge,” featuring a working woman randomly selected to appear in a weekly show segment showing her dancing her way to a fitter lifestyle under the tutelage of a pro dance instructor as she progressively lost weight. Tysonia Sichinga, one of thousands of women who answered a casting call, proved up to the challenge.
A TV spot promoting Slim-Fast Optima’s capacity to curb hunger cravings, with a background theme of “Time Is On My Side” ran during the show. Banner ads also appeared on ABC.com. “This is all very much in the spirit of the vitality theme,” Kovner-Bryant said.
Last year, it localized the promotion, sponsoring a “Slim-Fast with the Stars” dancing competition that visited 38 cities around the country. Radio spots and on-air segments with local ABC affiliates built a buzz about the tour.
Unilever also produced 10 minutes of product tips as part of a Cardio Dance DVD release spun off the ABC series.
Ultimately, baseline consumption of Slim-Fast rose and consumers indicating future consideration of buying the product jumped 40%.
