Unilever Case Study

Ambition

Unilever is big. 150 million times a day in 150 countries people choose to make Unilever brands part of their lives. But in the consumer goods industry, growth is hard. Unilever decided that it was too diffuse, with too many brands, and with no unifying driver of growth. Unilever wanted to become a single-minded, idea-led growth business.

Action

Wolff Olins helped Unilever change, from an invisible owner of brands to a much more visible business, leading its brands through a single idea: "adding vitality to life." We created a visual identity that expresses "vitality" that is starting to appear on every Unilever product. Under this banner, we also worked on dozens of projects to put vitality at the heart of the organization from designing workplaces to transforming the recruitment process to training employees how to pass on the stories that underlie the idea. And we've helped Unilever invent new products and projects that deliver vitality.

Impact

Since implementing the Vitality brand idea, Unilever's operating profit has increased at an average rate of more than 15% a year, for four consecutive years. Every Unilever business, from China to Argentina, has embraced the Vitality brand idea and is using it to determine which businesses to invest in, which to exit from and where to innovate. An incredible €1.2 billion of the new brand idea, driving Unilever's profits to new heights.