Partnership with MOFILM invited budding and established film-makers to produce short films for top brands – from Axe to Vaseline; Grand-Prize winning film premieres at London Film Festival
UNILEVER, in partnership with MOFILM and the London Film Festival, are excited to announce the grand-prize winner of the Unilever Consumer Creative Challenge at this week’s London Film Festival. Judges awarded Ryoko Kawanishi the grand prize for her film, The Melody of Skin, created for the Vaseline brand.
A judging panel of peers, film experts and industry leaders selected the overall grand-prize winner from the 13 shortlisted videos – one for each of the participating brands. The winning film, Melody of Skin was chosen from among the brands’ entries and premiered at the London Film Festival last night. Ms Kawanishi will receive £7,000 and the grand-prize-winning film will feature in an upcoming Unilever marketing campaign.
Competition participants were invited to make a film for one of thirteen international Unilever brands. To watch the winning entries for each brands use the gallery below or follow the links: Axe, Ben and Jerry’s, Close up, Dove, Walls, Knorr, Lifebuoy, Lipton, Rexona, Snuggle, Sunsilk, Surf and Vaseline.
To Learn More Click Here
Showing posts with label unilver. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unilver. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Unilever announces crowdsourcing success and a new website
By Arif Durrani, marketingmagazine.co.uk, 12 October 2010, 03:46PM
Unilever, the world's second-largest advertiser, is changing the way it markets itself to incorporate more crowdsourcing and co-creation opportunities and to be less "corporate", according to chief marketer Keith Weed.
Speaking at the Guardian Advertising Summit today, Weed, who earlier this year became the first man to be responsible for all marketing, communications and sustainability strategies at the multinational conglomerate, indicated more change was on its way.
Among the things set to get an overhaul is Unilever’s flagship site itself, Unilever.com.
Weed said the company would respond to consumers’ wishes for the company to be less corporate and to speak to them in their own language.
He said: "I don’t think that a lot of company sites have realised that their biggest users now are consumers. And we’re guilty as well. Go on to Unilever.com, we’re still very corporate. That will change.
"We’re still very corporate in our face to the outside world, because it is positioned to a financial analyst or a journalist.
"The truth of the matter is over 60% of the people that go to Unilever.com now are consumers and future employees, and we should engage them in that way. So more, certainly on my side, on that."
Talking about future plans for the British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer brands in foods, drink, cleaning agents and personal care products, Weed said it was centred around being more "joined-up", both internally and externally.
"It wasn’t so long ago that [Unilever] communications would have been over here, with marketing over there," he said.
"Unilever.com would have been communications and the Unilever corporate brand run by marketing. In a more transparent digital world it has to be joined-up… a more cohesive front."
Weed has already committed to doubling the company’s digital marketing budget during his first year, justified by his simple motto: "We fish where the fishes are".
Today he added: "We will be taking a much more proactive stance in the area of YouTube, Facebook, etc, even at a Unilever corporate level."
One initiative that is sure to shape Unilever’s digital strategy has been the well-publicised partnership with film competition board Mofilm, announced in April.
The crowdsourcing drive to generate short commercial films for 13 Unilever brands was today reported to have garnered 10,000 downloaded briefs by up-and-coming filmmaking talent. This activity has been in addition to crowdsourcing for Peperami and for the successful launch of Dove Men + Care in the US.
Weed hinted that more "interactive" Unilever ads would launch in the UK shortly.
Meanwhile, smartphones were identified as "the next step up, the next big transformation" for marketers. He added: "One factoid I’ll share with you because I love this one, is that there are more mobile phones now than toilets in India."
Weed concluded: "We hear a lot about climate change right now and I would argue that certainly from my perspective, from a brand perspective, the climate has very much changed and the revolution we’re in the middle of is a very exciting time for marketing, and there’s a huge amount of opportunity."
To Learn More click Here
Unilever, the world's second-largest advertiser, is changing the way it markets itself to incorporate more crowdsourcing and co-creation opportunities and to be less "corporate", according to chief marketer Keith Weed.
Speaking at the Guardian Advertising Summit today, Weed, who earlier this year became the first man to be responsible for all marketing, communications and sustainability strategies at the multinational conglomerate, indicated more change was on its way.
Among the things set to get an overhaul is Unilever’s flagship site itself, Unilever.com.
Weed said the company would respond to consumers’ wishes for the company to be less corporate and to speak to them in their own language.
He said: "I don’t think that a lot of company sites have realised that their biggest users now are consumers. And we’re guilty as well. Go on to Unilever.com, we’re still very corporate. That will change.
"We’re still very corporate in our face to the outside world, because it is positioned to a financial analyst or a journalist.
"The truth of the matter is over 60% of the people that go to Unilever.com now are consumers and future employees, and we should engage them in that way. So more, certainly on my side, on that."
Talking about future plans for the British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer brands in foods, drink, cleaning agents and personal care products, Weed said it was centred around being more "joined-up", both internally and externally.
"It wasn’t so long ago that [Unilever] communications would have been over here, with marketing over there," he said.
"Unilever.com would have been communications and the Unilever corporate brand run by marketing. In a more transparent digital world it has to be joined-up… a more cohesive front."
Weed has already committed to doubling the company’s digital marketing budget during his first year, justified by his simple motto: "We fish where the fishes are".
Today he added: "We will be taking a much more proactive stance in the area of YouTube, Facebook, etc, even at a Unilever corporate level."
One initiative that is sure to shape Unilever’s digital strategy has been the well-publicised partnership with film competition board Mofilm, announced in April.
The crowdsourcing drive to generate short commercial films for 13 Unilever brands was today reported to have garnered 10,000 downloaded briefs by up-and-coming filmmaking talent. This activity has been in addition to crowdsourcing for Peperami and for the successful launch of Dove Men + Care in the US.
Weed hinted that more "interactive" Unilever ads would launch in the UK shortly.
Meanwhile, smartphones were identified as "the next step up, the next big transformation" for marketers. He added: "One factoid I’ll share with you because I love this one, is that there are more mobile phones now than toilets in India."
Weed concluded: "We hear a lot about climate change right now and I would argue that certainly from my perspective, from a brand perspective, the climate has very much changed and the revolution we’re in the middle of is a very exciting time for marketing, and there’s a huge amount of opportunity."
To Learn More click Here
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Crowd-sourcing goes global
It was interested to hear that Unilever has recently unveiled its new crowd-sourcing campaign. The Unilever Consumer Creative Challenge is the FMCG giant's largest-scale crowdsourcing drive to date. It was unveiled at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. In collaboration with MOFILM, a community of aspiring film-makers, Unilever will seek video content for 13 of its brands: Lynx, Ben & Jerry's, Close Up, Dove deodorant, Wall's ice cream, Knorr, Lifebuoy, Lipton, Comfort, Sure, Surf, Sunsilk and Vaseline. The consumer products group will name five winners for each brand at the London Film Festival in October, and one overall winner who will walk away with £7,000. Unilever plans to use the winning ideas in future marketing campaigns.
This story was featured on Brand Republic and has attracted a number of comments, many of which are not particularly supportive of the brand and its initiative. But what struck me was that no-one had commented on the fact that this was a great example of a cross cultural campaign not to mention an innovative approach to gathering global customer insight. Contestants can enter the competition in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Chinese and so in one coordinated campaign, Unilever will get an insight into the messages and cultural brand associations across a diverse range of countries and cultural groups.
I do agree with some of the views expressed in relation to this story in that sometimes, stories like this do seem to suggest that there is no need for creative departments if we can simply outsource the idea generation function to the public. We often have a similar problem in the translation industry, as many think it is something that they can do themselves or that can be done with an online translation tool. The same answer applies to both. Crowd-sourcing as a vehicle to obtain customer insight will always be valuable to a brand and will continue to grow in popularity, but ultimately there will always be a need to sanity check this input against solid industry experience, theory and wider management information.
Crowd-sourcing has been introduced to the translation world via tools such as Google Translate, but even this isn’t fool proof. According to reports a few months ago, an error in translation was made by an individual with a point to make. Apparently Google was quick to fix the translations, but it draws home the fact that even Google isn’t protected from the desire by individual members of crowd-sourcing applications to take matters into their own hands to lead their own political agenda.
Global crowd-sourcing initiatives that serve to facilitate a two-way dialogue across language and cultural boundaries is an approach which should be commended and will undoubtedly add value to any customer insight programmes, but we should be careful not to let it completely overtake strategies to the point where we lose sight of how important internal expertise and knowledge is too.
To Learn More Click Here
This story was featured on Brand Republic and has attracted a number of comments, many of which are not particularly supportive of the brand and its initiative. But what struck me was that no-one had commented on the fact that this was a great example of a cross cultural campaign not to mention an innovative approach to gathering global customer insight. Contestants can enter the competition in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Chinese and so in one coordinated campaign, Unilever will get an insight into the messages and cultural brand associations across a diverse range of countries and cultural groups.
I do agree with some of the views expressed in relation to this story in that sometimes, stories like this do seem to suggest that there is no need for creative departments if we can simply outsource the idea generation function to the public. We often have a similar problem in the translation industry, as many think it is something that they can do themselves or that can be done with an online translation tool. The same answer applies to both. Crowd-sourcing as a vehicle to obtain customer insight will always be valuable to a brand and will continue to grow in popularity, but ultimately there will always be a need to sanity check this input against solid industry experience, theory and wider management information.
Crowd-sourcing has been introduced to the translation world via tools such as Google Translate, but even this isn’t fool proof. According to reports a few months ago, an error in translation was made by an individual with a point to make. Apparently Google was quick to fix the translations, but it draws home the fact that even Google isn’t protected from the desire by individual members of crowd-sourcing applications to take matters into their own hands to lead their own political agenda.
Global crowd-sourcing initiatives that serve to facilitate a two-way dialogue across language and cultural boundaries is an approach which should be commended and will undoubtedly add value to any customer insight programmes, but we should be careful not to let it completely overtake strategies to the point where we lose sight of how important internal expertise and knowledge is too.
To Learn More Click Here
Unilever experimenting with crowdsourcing for ads
LONDON: Keith Weed certainly knows how to make an entrance. The first major piece of activity signed off by Unilever's new chief marketing and communications
officer is the company's most ambitious attempt at crowdsourcing to date.
The activity centres on a global initiative, unveiled last week, to source consumer-generated advertising content. This is not an original idea, but it is taking place on an unprecedented scale — 13 of Unilever's biggest global brands are involved, with the goal of finding content that can run in multiple markets, either on TV or via online channels.
The plan represents a step up from Unilever's previous experiments in this area, which used single brands in single markets. Last year, for example, it dropped Lowe from the Peperami account and held a crowdsourcing contest to find replacement creative, while in China it asked consumers to post videos based on Lipton tea.
It should also be noted that the latest invitation is aimed squarely at film-makers, not consumers in general. In that respect, it is similar to the Peperami exercise, which was carried out via creative network Idea Bounty.
Babs Rangaiah, Unilever's vice-president of global communications planning, says the lesson learned from earlier campaigns was that crowdsourcing should not be 'about getting a million people creating ads'; instead he is looking for entry numbers in the hundreds. He believes the company can tap into a desire among a film-making audience for visibility and the chance to advance their careers. 'Using this technique properly can produce some really engaging ideas,' he says.
Unilever is paying out £70,000 in prizes — a relatively small investment for creative ideas. According to Carl Ratcliff, planning director at ad agency MCBD, who worked last year on a campaign for OXO built around user-generated content, the approach could allow Unilever to focus its investment on media buys. For example, OXO, he says, was able to secure high-profile slots around The X Factor.
Of course, squeezing creative costs in this way may not go down well with a brand's creative partners. Rangaiah insists that the strategy does not 'replace or interfere with our relationships with agencies'.
However, the agencies in question show a marked unwillingness to comment on the idea. Off the record, executives at some of Unilever's agency partners express disgruntlement with being so publicly bypassed. 'It's not just about coming up with an idea, it's about following it up with a coherent campaign,' says one. Rory Sutherland, president of the IPA, also questions why crowdsourced campaigns are judged on their likeability alone.
Opposing views
These critics may have a point. After all, the Lynx campaigns by Bartle Bogle Hegarty are often held up as an example of successful long-term marketing. Why, then, would Unilever run the risk of disrupting such work? Ratcliff contends, however that this risk is negligible: 'This is allowing consumers to play at the margins. Those margins are never going to take centre stage.'
Nevertheless, such crowdsourcing initiatives are unlikely to go away. Rangaiah confirms it is 'more than a one-off' for Unilever.
Alastair Duncan, partner at crowdsourcing agency Alternative Genius, argues clients are looking at these options because they are 'frustrated'. 'With Peperami, Unilever's frustration was that it felt it was bottom of the (agency's) food
chain,' he claims. 'It would issue a brief and weeks later it would get an idea.'
To Learn More Click Here
officer is the company's most ambitious attempt at crowdsourcing to date.
The activity centres on a global initiative, unveiled last week, to source consumer-generated advertising content. This is not an original idea, but it is taking place on an unprecedented scale — 13 of Unilever's biggest global brands are involved, with the goal of finding content that can run in multiple markets, either on TV or via online channels.
The plan represents a step up from Unilever's previous experiments in this area, which used single brands in single markets. Last year, for example, it dropped Lowe from the Peperami account and held a crowdsourcing contest to find replacement creative, while in China it asked consumers to post videos based on Lipton tea.
It should also be noted that the latest invitation is aimed squarely at film-makers, not consumers in general. In that respect, it is similar to the Peperami exercise, which was carried out via creative network Idea Bounty.
Babs Rangaiah, Unilever's vice-president of global communications planning, says the lesson learned from earlier campaigns was that crowdsourcing should not be 'about getting a million people creating ads'; instead he is looking for entry numbers in the hundreds. He believes the company can tap into a desire among a film-making audience for visibility and the chance to advance their careers. 'Using this technique properly can produce some really engaging ideas,' he says.
Unilever is paying out £70,000 in prizes — a relatively small investment for creative ideas. According to Carl Ratcliff, planning director at ad agency MCBD, who worked last year on a campaign for OXO built around user-generated content, the approach could allow Unilever to focus its investment on media buys. For example, OXO, he says, was able to secure high-profile slots around The X Factor.
Of course, squeezing creative costs in this way may not go down well with a brand's creative partners. Rangaiah insists that the strategy does not 'replace or interfere with our relationships with agencies'.
However, the agencies in question show a marked unwillingness to comment on the idea. Off the record, executives at some of Unilever's agency partners express disgruntlement with being so publicly bypassed. 'It's not just about coming up with an idea, it's about following it up with a coherent campaign,' says one. Rory Sutherland, president of the IPA, also questions why crowdsourced campaigns are judged on their likeability alone.
Opposing views
These critics may have a point. After all, the Lynx campaigns by Bartle Bogle Hegarty are often held up as an example of successful long-term marketing. Why, then, would Unilever run the risk of disrupting such work? Ratcliff contends, however that this risk is negligible: 'This is allowing consumers to play at the margins. Those margins are never going to take centre stage.'
Nevertheless, such crowdsourcing initiatives are unlikely to go away. Rangaiah confirms it is 'more than a one-off' for Unilever.
Alastair Duncan, partner at crowdsourcing agency Alternative Genius, argues clients are looking at these options because they are 'frustrated'. 'With Peperami, Unilever's frustration was that it felt it was bottom of the (agency's) food
chain,' he claims. 'It would issue a brief and weeks later it would get an idea.'
To Learn More Click Here
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Don't Look Now, but the Crowd Might Just Steal Your Ad Account
Unilever Takes Practice Further Than Most, Sacks Lowe on Peperami Biz. LONDON (AdAge.com) -- For some time, marketers have been using ad contests as one-off PR ploys for their brands. Now, Unilever is testing whether crowdsourcing can be a long-term strategy for one of its British brands -- and the result could have far-reaching consequences for any number of agencies on the consumer-goods giant's roster. Unilever said it believes mainly creatives will crowdsource ideas for Peperami, not the general public. Unilever said it believes mainly creatives will crowdsource ideas for Peperami, not the general public. Just ask Lowe, London, which was recently sacked by Unilever on its Peperami snack brand so that the marketer can run a contest to find ad ideas. Unilever is offering a $10,000 bounty to the winner of a competition to find TV and print ideas for the meat snack popular with schoolchildren. Matt Burgess, managing director of the Unilever division that owns Peperami, said, "Lowe has done great work on the account over the years. They've created a strong creative vehicle that's extremely well-defined and very portable. But their great work has created a problem for them, because it makes Peperami the obvious candidate for crowdsourcing." What's more, Unilever isn't holding this up as a publicity stunt designed to appeal to average consumers. It actually expects that professionals in creative businesses will respond, and that's precisely who the pitch is marketed to. Oh, and if you think you're safe on some other Unilever account, beware.
To Learn More Click Here
To Learn More Click Here
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Unilever goes crowdsourcing to spice up Peperami's TV ads
Unilever is offering $10,000 (£6,087) in a competition to find ideas for its next TV campaign for snack food brand Peperami, using its quirky Animal character, as it decides to drop its ad agency of 16 years and turn to crowdsourcing for creative ideas.
To Learn More Click Here
Click To Enter
To Learn More Click Here
Click To Enter
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)