Day Three at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity kicked off with super heavyweight Lions performer Unilever opening the morning with Conny Braams, Chief Digital and Commercial Officer, and $5 billion Unilever brand Dove’s CMO Alessandro Manfredi taking the stage to urge the audience to keep to their purpose even though it’s become unsexy these past few years.
Braams kicked off proceedings confirming her decision last month to leave to the business after 33 years. She then told the audience that after a few decades of relative stability, things were changing fast, and the world was an increasingly fraught place to do business.
To this end, she said the role brands had to play in people’s lives was more difficult and brands therefore needed to know where they stood in how consumers lived, shopped and played.
Most tellingly, she pointed to research that brands were losing meaning in people’s lives. People simply no longer cared what product supplied the product they consumed. Unless, of course, you made it your business to stand out and make them care. To do that, you have to actually play a role in their lives; to matter.
She said people were living differently. Single households were on the rise and South Korea was looking at a 50 per cent decline its population. “In fact, soon 20 per cent of the population would soon be over 60, however we don’t see this reflected in ads. Only 6 per cent of global ads feature characters over the age of 65.”
She then played the wonderful Magnum ad as a case of what we ought to be doing. Magnum is, of course, a Unilever brand.
She also pointed to the fact that the global second-hand clothing market was now worth US$350 billion, driven largely by Gen Z, and that the gaming industry was bigger than the movie and news industry combined. And yet, the average of a gamer was 35.
She said then, the framework Unilever was using to tackling this problem of changing consumer habits was threefold:
1: Get real
2: Do good
3: Be unmissable
To illustrate the point, Braams handed over to Manfredi who basically took a victory lap over the work Dove has done ever since Real Beauty smashed through stereotypes and forever positioned the brand as the long-term champion of female self-esteem by using real women and untouched pictures back in 2004.
When he showed the most recent work, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. If you’ve not seen it, check it out below. (And a warning, it contains confronting material.)
I’m sure you would agree, this is important work and Dove has done an amazing job of positioning itself right in the middle of it.
And don’t forget the Turn Your Back campaign against TikTok
They’re also sponsoring the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand later this year.
In concluding, Braams said that her business, and all marketers, couldn’t ignore short-term performance marketing to drive sales. “But who ever said short-term performance-based marketing couldn’t also drive brand growth?”
