Case study - Unilever: Win with effective promotions

Unilever is one of the world’s largest FMCG businesses. In Vietnam they worked with Kantar to understand how to make their promotional strategy in the laundry care sector more effective. Applying the insights that they gained from this project meant that their key laundry brands had the potential of a multi-million pound revenue increase once the strategy had been fully rolled-out.

THE CHALLENGE
EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PROMOTIONS
Unilever had traditionally invested in promotions more than other brands, especially for big categories such as fabric solutions. However, the company did not have a tool to evaluate the effectiveness of promotions and therefore shape a fully-informed strategy.

OUR APPROACH
TURNING INSIGHTS INTO ACTION PLANS
Focusing on their two key brands, Omo and Surf, Kantar deployed its uniquely detailed expertise in category sales and associated consumer behaviour to unearth insights about each brand and then turn these into tailored action plans.

THE INSIGHT
DISCOUNTS, SUPERMARKETS AND PROMOTIONS
Kantar’s findings highlighted three key insights:

1. Discounts of 30% or less were more effective for the Unilever brands.
2. Hypermarkets were the channel where promotions drove more incremental volume.
3. Large-packs promotions were able to drive both uplift as well as incrementality.

THE IMPACT
DEVELOPING A MORE EFFECTIVE PROMOTION STRATEGY
Kantar’s findings were turned into specific recommendations for each of Unilever’s main laundry brands, allowing Unilever to develop a more effective promotion strategy with a potential revenue uplift of more than £5m.