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Tag: Unilever

  • OYO and Unilever partner to lead the way on hotel cleanliness

    OYO and Unilever partner to lead the way on hotel cleanliness

    New Delhi: OYO Hotels & Homes, one of the world’s leading hotel chains has partnered with Unilever, the global consumer goods company, to enhance OYO’s ‘Sanitised Stays’ initiative with the help of Unilever’s leading home and personal hygiene brands which will be used in the cleaning and disinfecting of OYO properties.

    With higher hygiene standards, minimal-touch services, and enhanced credibility topping the list of customer requirements, Unilever’s R&D team will work with OYO to co-create Standard Operating Procedures for cleaning to maximise the positive effects of Unilever products. OYO properties where these operating procedures are used will display a tag on booking pages to show Unilever products have been used in cleaning services. This global partnership will begin in India and then go live across Indonesia, Vietnam, the US, LATAM and Europe.

    Through this partnership, select OYO properties will have Unilever hygiene kits for guests and cleaning supplies for staff, including products from brands such as Lifebuoy, Domex, Sunlight and Cif. To provide a cleaner and more hygienic experience to guests right from check-in to check-out, OYO has upgraded its cleanliness and hygiene protocols to suit the ‘new normal’ with ‘OYO Sanitised Stays’. 

    OYO founder & group CEO Ritesh Agarwal added, “As the world begins to travel again, we must all collectively ensure that health and safety remain the absolute priority. The scientific expertise of Unilever and assurance of their brands Lifebuoy, Domex, Sunlight and Cif are second to none and we are confident that our guests will have a quality and stress-free experience with ‘OYO Sanitised Stays’ with Unilever’s leading home and personal hygiene products. We’re pleased that by partnering with Unilever and providing their trusted products, we are able to help customers, as well as our staff, stay as safe as possible. With our committed asset owners, we are ready to host consumers across the world and we promise to give our customers the confidence to enjoy the OYO experience as we help drive higher standards in hygiene”

    Hindustan Unilever chairman and MD Sanjiv Mehta said, “With Hindustan Unilever’s long history in India, we are determined to do our part to protect lives and livelihoods and are glad to have found a strong partner in OYO who shares this vision. Through this partnership, Unilever is pleased to be able to help, through our known and trusted home and personal hygiene brands and education on correct use. We remain committed to improving the health and wellbeing of millions across the globe, and keeping our communities safe during these times.”

  • Wake-up call for social media platforms as brands boycott in droves

    Wake-up call for social media platforms as brands boycott in droves

    NEW DELHI: Social media platforms, which were a boon for brands, seem to have turned into a bane now. After consumer product giant Unilever announced that it will halt advertising on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the US for the rest of the year, due to the rising hate speech and upcoming election period, Coca-Cola, which advertises heavily on digital media, has also suspended advertising on social media for at least 30 days.

    "There is no place for racism in the world and there is no place for racism on social media," said The Coca-Cola Company chairman and CEO James Quincey.

    Should social media companies worry about the rising boycott? TRA founder and CEO N Chandramouli believes that the #BlackLivesMatter protests compelled brands to take a closer look at things they often considered “normal.”

    “Coca-Cola and Unilever are leaders not only in terms of the advertising spends but also thought-leaders such that other brands will see and follow. Social media has always been a little free of scrutiny with the indiscriminate show of ads with irrelevant content and also with content that the brand may not want to associate with. Social media has to turn its technology to deliver ads more contextually, with the advertiser deciding what type of content they do not want to be seen with," he says.

    The boycott has had a ripple effect with other brands coming on board to boycott including Diageo, Lululemon, Starbucks, Verizon. Levi's and Dockers have also restricted themselves from advertising on Facebook and Instagram till July. Hershey’s has also decided to join hands with #stophateforprofit; the brand will slash its advertising budget on Facebook. American Honda has also decided to withhold its advertising on Facebook and Instagram for Honda and Acura, to stand with people against hate and racism.

    Even P&G chief brand officer Marc Pritchard said that the company would be conducting a comprehensive review of where it was advertising.

    Tidal7 co-founder and chief creative officer KS Chakravarthy explains, “This is no longer about a few brands or a few hundred million in revenues. It is a wakeup call for all media and particularly for those depending on an online audience. Crossing the line can spark off a whole series of adverse reactions that can very quickly feed off one another to escalate into a universal movement. And it is this symbiotic growth of outrage that Facebook should be seriously worried about.”

    Unilever has more than two dozen brands in its kitty including popular ones like Dove, Lipton and Breyers. According to marketing analytics firm Pathmatics, Unilever spent more than $11.8 million in the US this year on Facebook. While it quit social media, the consumer giant will maintain its planned media investment by shifting to other media.

    Consults Inc founder Harish Bijoor shares, “Brands are getting sensitive in these sensitive times as to where they advertise. Coca-Cola and Unilever's action is part of this sentiment translating into action. Hate speech in the time of social angst is something responsible brands want to avoid. Social media will need to realign its content policy if it wants sponsors to stay with it in terms of advertising.” 

    Following the resentment, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, on Friday, said that the company would implement new policies to connect people with authoritative information about voting and fight hate speech. However, he did not directly address the advertisers boycott.

    As per media reports, Facebook brought in $69.7 billion in ad revenue globally through its millions of advertisers last year. The company said earlier this year it has more than eight million advertisers.

    Brand-nomics MD Viren Razdan says, “For Facebook, it’s really a time to put their transparency out to test, it’s important for them to clarify that their self-created code of conduct does not lean towards any business goals.”

    Chakravarthy says, “Social media does have a real responsibility and unfortunately, they are not stepping up, at least not enough, in many people's opinion, including their own employees.”

    The list of brands boycotting social media platforms, especially Facebook, is likely to increase and unless they take the issue seriously, may incur severe losses.

    (With inputs from Mansi Sharma)

  • Dove, UNICEF partner to educate and empower girls

    Dove, UNICEF partner to educate and empower girls

    MUMBAI:  United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Unilever’s personal care brand, Dove have partnered to help 10 million young people across India, Brazil, and Indonesia gain better self-esteem and body confidence by 2022. The partnership announced at the Women Deliver Conference in Vancouver will see Dove and UNICEF integrate modules from the Dove Self-Esteem Project, launched in 2004 to educate girls on body-confidence, and UNICEF’s Life Skills Programs.

    The ‘Dove Self-Esteem Project’, which has so far reached 35 million young people, is the largest provider of self-esteem and body confidence education in the world. The project has been working to better understand the damage that low self-esteem can have on young people, including India.

    According to a survey conducted by the project last year, 60 per cent of Indian girls do not have high body esteem and 65 per cent avoid important activities due to low body confidence. The survey highlighted that 60 per cent of Indian girls feel pressure to be beautiful – shown to have the largest impact on overall life satisfaction.

    Speaking about the three-year partnership UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore said, “Young people are some of the world’s best advocates, creators, and thinkers. Yet, feelings of disempowerment, low self-esteem, and a lack of confidence too often prevent them from speaking out, standing up for what they believe in and reaching their full potential. Through our new partnership with the Dove Self-Esteem Project, we are hoping to change that.”

    The project also revealed that 70 per cent of girls with low body esteem fail to assert themselves or ask for help in school because they do not feel confident about the way they look. The same research showed that 80 per cent of girls with low body esteem have put their health at risk, for example by not attending a doctor’s appointment or skipping meals.

    The new partnership will develop modules, with education specialists, psychologists and subject matter experts, urging young girls to fulfil their potential and exercise their human rights for a path to a promising future. The partnership will also encourage these girls to move beyond negative appearance-related dogmas affecting their health, education, careers and relationships.

    “The Dove Self Esteem Project has reached 35 million young people and we are very happy to be partnering with UNICEF to empower 10 million more young people, especially girls. Issues with self-esteem and body confidence can have serious implications for girls’ development; so it is critical that we work to address them and help girls become the leaders of tomorrow,” said Dove parent company Unilever CEO Alan Jope.

    Talking about the initiative in detail, Hindustan Unilever executive director and VP beauty and personal care Sandeep Kohli said, “Dove believes in the need to address unrealistic beauty standards and change them so that we can create a world where young girls can grow up to be women confident in their own skin. We are making progress towards this, however, we still have an enormous amount of work to do. Through our partnership with UNICEF, we hope to continue to help girls develop the resilience they need to overcome the impact of beauty and appearance pressures.”

  • Silverpush launches operations in hong kong, expands apac operations

    Silverpush launches operations in hong kong, expands apac operations

    MUMBAI: SilverPush, the AI based marketing-technology platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI), today announced that it has opened its first office in Hong Kong, as part of its expansion plans across Asia to raise its service offerings in one of the company’s fastest growing markets.

    Founded in 2012 by Hitesh Chawla and headquartered in India, SilverPush is a leading digital advertisement platform which helps brands to maximise their audience engagement via real-time TV tracking and TV-to-digital sync solutions. SilverPush’s patented video fingerprinting and content recognition technology helps brands engage with multi screening audiences.

    According to Kartik Mehta, Chief Revenue Officer, SilverPush, “With one of the world’s highest internet and mobile penetration rates, in addition to brands’ investment on TV in the region, the Asian market has become our biggest priority. The aim of SiverPush’s further expansion into Hong Kong is to help more brands operating there to reach their multiscreen customers more effectively via their real-time platform.”

    Kartik further added, “Conventionally, TV has been the dominant medium for advertisers in Asia. However, the gap between TV and smartphone ownership has narrowed, meaning that more people are obtaining and engaging content via their mobile devices – requiring brands to raise their audience engagement across multiple platforms. SilverPush addresses these trends by allowing brands operating in Hong Kong and within Southeast Asia to reach out to customers across platforms in real time.”

    Across Asia, Silverpush currently works with global brands such as Unilever, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, and many others.

    The company’s latest product, Mirrors, was launched in late 2018 to help contextualise ads when people are viewing content on their devices – therefore aiming to tackle the US$170 billion global problem of misplaced online advertising. Using AI with computer vision, Mirrors detects context in video content that aligns with an advertiser’s core communications objectives, allowing them to effectively target their ads in a world already cluttered with advertisements. This contextual approach to marketing seeks to revolutionise the way that brands engage with their audience.

    SilverPush currently serves clients in eight Asian markets including India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and now, Hong Kong. In addition, SilverPush is also present in South Africa, Tanzania, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The company recently raised US$ 5 million in Series B funding led by FreakOut Holdings, Inc., a global marketing technology company and plans to expand into the United States as well as other emerging markets in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

  • Unilever elevates Nitin Paranjpe as COO and Sanjiv Mehta as president, South Asia

    Unilever elevates Nitin Paranjpe as COO and Sanjiv Mehta as president, South Asia

    MUMBAI: Unilever recently promoted its president for foods and refreshment Nitin Paranjpe to the post of chief operating officer. In his new role, Paranjpe will be responsible for Unilever’s go-to-market organisations, driving and co-ordinating in-year performance across their countries in line with the company’s divisional strategies.

    Hanneke Faber will take up the role of president foods and refreshment post him. Faber was previously appointed as president for the Europe region.

    There have been several other key appointments and reshuffles in the top management of the global giant.

    Sanjiv Mehta, who was earlier the EVP South Asia, has now been elevated to the post of president for the same region. He will be joining the Unilever Leadership Executive, bringing emerging markets expertise to the executive team.

    Peter Ter Kulve, chief digital officer and EVP South East Asia and Australasia (SEAA), has been appointed president, home care. He will be replacing Kees Kruythoff who has decided to leave Unilever after 27 years of service.

    The roles of President Europe and EVP SEAA will not be replaced. The country organisations in these regions will report into the COO.

    All changes will be effective from 1 May.

  • Devendra Deshpande joins Friday Filmworks as head of digital content, IP

    Devendra Deshpande joins Friday Filmworks as head of digital content, IP

    MUMBAI: The head of Content Plus at Mindshare Devendra Deshpande has moved on and joined renowned multi-media production house, Friday Filmworks as head of digital content and IP.

    In his new role, Deshpande will create and monetise sustainable and scalable IPs for the ever growing digital/OTT space for domestic and international markets. He will also create new monetisation models around content, including franchising and l&M for Friday Filmworks.

    Neeraj Pandey and Shital Bhatia's collaborative venture Friday Filmworks has completed a glorious decade in Indian Cinema. Having being set up in the year 2008, Friday Filmworks has believed in both content and cinematic experience. The journey began with A Wednesday, a film which became a sleeper hit back then and has set trend of content driven films in showbiz. Over the years Friday Filmworks has garnered immense love and appreciation from audience and critics alike. Neeraj Pandey and Shital Bhatia's Friday Filmworks has been a trendsetter in Bollywood. Over the decade it has delivered films like A Wednesday (2008), Special 26 (2013), Total Siyapaa (2014), Rustom (2016), Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017). 

    Devendra  has been a part of GroupM for over eight years, and has served as the head of Mindshare Content Plus for the last three and a half years.

    Devendra has 16 plus years of experience in developing long term strategic partnerships through a deep understanding of advertising, social, integrated marketing, consumer insights, and media. 

    Over the course of his tenure at GroupM, he has worked closely with several top tier brands such as Unilever, Pepsi, GSK, Diageo, Kellogg's amongst others.

  • Unilever to cut ties with digital influencers

    Unilever to cut ties with digital influencers

    MUMBAI: While brands continue to engage in paid promotions through influencer marketing, consumer goods giant Unilever’s had enough. The world’s second biggest advertiser has decided to stop this practice to promote its products. Companies tend to rely on influencers to generate a buzz around their products on social media. But more often than not, followers of these influencers aren’t real people but fake accounts and bots.

    Hence, Unilever, maker of Sunsilk shampoo, Dove and Lipton tea, wants to help make advertising more transparent and will cut ties with all digital influencers. Unilever spent US $8.9 billion on marketing last year.

    The company’s  chief marketing officer Keith Weed is said to pledge today at the on-going Cannes Lions that Unilever will never buy followers or work with influencers who buy followers.

    “Trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback, and we could very quickly see the whole influencer space be undermined. There are lots of great influencers out there, but there are a few bad apples spoiling the barrel and the trouble is, everyone goes down once the trust is undermined,” Weed told Reuters. 

    It was only recently that Unilever threatened Facebook and Google that it will withdraw its advertising on the social media platforms if they fail to remove content that creates division in the society and promotes hate. Weed had said at the time, “As one of the largest advertisers in the world, we cannot have an environment where our consumers don’t trust what they see online.”

    The move also comes as Unilever and Procter & Gamble are in the process of auditing their ad spends and agency relationship to function more efficiently as the industry sale for consumer packed goods has witnessed a drop. To cut down on the advertising and marketing costs, these multinational brands are now working with fewer agencies while creating some of the campaigns in-house rather than spending millions on an ad agency. 

    According to a report by Rakuten Marketing, some UK advertisers were willing to pay US$100,000 to celebrity influencers for a single Facebook post whereas a micro influencer with followers as low as 10,0000 earns as much as 15000 pounds for a single post.

    Also Read:

    Unilever threatens to pull the plug on digital advertising

    Sorrell pats Mukesh Ambani’s back for telecom explosion

    HUL marketing spends up in third quarter

  • Zee Media appoints Ashok Venkatramani as MD

    Zee Media appoints Ashok Venkatramani as MD

    MUMBAI: ABP News Network former CEO Ashok Venkatramani has been appointed as the new MD of Zee Media Corporation Ltd (ZMCL) for three years. The appointment will come into effect from 1 July 2018.

    “Based on recommendation of Nomination & Remuneration Committee and subject to requisite regulatory approvals, including approval of shareholders, appointment of Mr. Ashok Venkatramani as Managing Director of the company [is approved] for a period of three years with effect from July 1, 2018,” ZMCL informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

    Venkatramani brings with him an experience of over 25 years in FMCG and broadcasting sectors. Prior to joining ZMCL, he also worked with ABP group for over eight years having joined ABP News in 2008. 

    Venkatramani started his career with Unilever. He was the VP and business head – skincare for Unilever in India till 2008, before moving as the CEO of ABP News Network, which he headed until 2016. He was instrumental in turning around ABP’s TV news business and successfully managed the transition from Star brand to ABP.

    Venkatramani, 55, is a B. Tech from Bombay University and has done his management education from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and Harvard Business School.

  • WPP board begins investigation of its CEO Sir Martin Sorrel, says WSJ

    WPP board begins investigation of its CEO Sir Martin Sorrel, says WSJ

    MUMBAI: Once the toast of the advertising industry, investors, and shareholders, Sir Martin Sorrell now faces the ignominy of being probed by a law firm, which has been appointed by the WPP board for a potential misuse of assets and personal misconduct, if a report in the Wall Street Journal is to be believed.

    The agency group has been under pressure from clients and hungry for business rivals for a while. Its share price has fallen some 35 per cent as companies such as Alphabet (Google) and Facebook have been doing direct deals with brands, cutting agencies such as WPP out of the picture. Additionally, big spenders such as Unilever, Procter & Gamble have also been cutting back on marketing spends in a rapidly disintermediating digital content marketplace.

    This has led to WPP reportedly putting up a lackluster performance which in turn has affected its share price. Sorrell was also forced to take a cut in his pay, the amount he was forced to back down from 2017’s 48 million pounds sterling, will become clearer in the next few days as it announces its financial performance.

    A Saatchi & Saatchi finance executive in the seventies and eighties, Sorrell went about building what would become a global tour de force under the umbrella of a company called Wire & Plastic Products. He acquired 18 different below the line agencies over three years, before making an audacious $566 million dollar bid for J Walter Thompson and then $825 million for Ogilvy & Mather. He acquired both of them. He snared two other agencies Young & Rubicam and then Grey Worldwide on the follow through. Among the other agencies and communication services providers under WPP today include: Wunderman, Kantar Group, Hill & Knowlton, Burson-Marsteller, GroupM, Cohn & Wolfe, Brand Union, Buchanan UK among others.

    WPP as a group employs close to 200,000 employees worldwide and reported a revenue of 15.265 billion pounds sterling, with an operating income of 1.908 billion pounds sterling with net income standing at 1.912 billion pounds sterling in 2017.

    Investors have been baying for Sorrell’s blood for some time now with the agency not coming with a solid plan to revive growth. Speaking to indiantelevision.com in Amsterdam a couple of years ago Sorrell had said: “I only own two per cent of the company; but I am identified with the company. I will carry on as long they will let me. WPP is not a matter of life or death for me, it is more than that. They will carry me out to the glue factory.”

  • Unilever threatens to pull the plug on digital advertising

    Unilever threatens to pull the plug on digital advertising

    MUMBAI: International major FMCG player Unilever has threatened Facebook and Google that it will withdraw its advertising on the social media platforms if they fail to remove content that creates division in society and promotes hate.

    The biggest multinational player said in a conference held at California that, “As one of the largest advertisers in the world, we cannot have an environment where our consumers don’t trust what they see online.”

    Unilever’s stern step comes while technology and social media companies are facing major criticism for failing to protect children and to erase fake news, hate speech and extremism.

    Unilever chief marketing officer Keith Weed said at the conference that the brand cannot continue to prop up a digital supply chain that delivers over a quarter of their advertising to consumers – which at times is little better than a swamp in terms of its transparency.

    While mentioning that such messages are toxic for the society and only take us backward, Weed added, “Fake news, sexism, toxic content aimed at children, terrorists spreading hate messages are all a part of internet now and we have ended up with a million miles from where we thought it would take us.”

    He goes on to add, “It is in the digital media industry’s interest to listen and act on this. Before viewers stop viewing, advertisers stop advertising and publishers stop publishing.”

    A third of the company’s advertising spend is on the digital medium today and Unilever has decided to cut down on the 3000 ad agencies it uses globally and further cutting costs by making 30 per cent fewer ads. Unilever has promised to boost more ‘responsible content’ that will tackle concerns like gender stereotypes. It will only work with digital networks that agree to use industry standards of ad metrics and improve consumer experience. Discussions with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon and SnapChat are already on.

    Facebook and Google are said to account for nearly three-quarters of the total digital advertising in the US. Last year Procter & Gamble (P&G) issued a similar warning before cutting $100 million of its digital ad spend without any negative impact on sales.

    On the other hand, in the UK, Facebook and Google have more than 60 per cent of digital advertising and 90 per cent of all new digital spending.

    A move like this could adversely impact the digital industry and major advertising agency’s revenue.