“UNILEVER CASE STUDY: SUMMARY”

Unilever was created in 1930 as an outcome of merger with dual chairpersons and headquarters
one in Netherlands and other in United Kingdom. This is of one the giant and best competitor’s
in the industry which holds wide range of products. The two chairpersons have launched a
strategy in early 2000 to recover the company’s performance which was said to be lackluster.
With the new strategies the company showed a significant progress and has gone through many
dealings over the next years, this made the company to open 20 new acquisitions worldwide and
increased the sales of the company. Thus the company’s business was restructured, renovated
and improved through its acquisitions. Then their came companies likes nestle which effecting
the growth of Unilever. Unilever then started efforts to attract and motivate young, talented and
innovative managers from outside its company. The case study describes a lot of information
regarding Unilever’s business strategies, key elements of Unilever’s path to growth, how they
rejuvenated and restructured the companies’ slow moving performance to wide range of brands
across the world.

Path to Growth:

Path to growth strategy was initiated in 2000 and was restructured for several years for better and
significant results. The key elements of this Unilever’s path to growth strategy were cutting
down its brands from 1600 brands to 400core brands to achieve top line sales and increase profits
by advertising the brands which are more popular and leading brands across the world and
concentrating on R & D. Another important key element was divesting underperforming brands
and theirs companies and introducing more innovated things to enhance the internal development
of the organization and making new acquisitions.

Unilever’s years of slow performance and its lack of corporate strategy in the competition
industry with low number of brands and ordinary performance in growing markets with a little
global presence made to create a path to growth strategy which was a 5 year growth plan which
made them to concentrate on more brands and product innovations for internal and external
growth of the company. And made the company to grow with acquisitions.
Unilever’s current business Strategies:

Ever since the ‘Path to Growth’ strategy ended in 2005 there has been a 15% increase in the sales
and development in the overall progress of Unilever. After the ‘Path to Growth’ came to an end a
new process was developed by Unilever called as the Brand Imprint which helped the marketing
teams in understanding how the business could face risks as well as opportunities from the
social, economic and environmental issues. In this process each brand was scrutinized by a team
looking into various aspects of it such as the direct as well the indirect impacts of the product, it
also checked how the brand would go ahead in the future looking at the products possibilities of
growth both from a customer and a stakeholders point of view.

The outcome of the Brand Imprint is that the process has helped in making important decisions
for the company keeping the future in perspective it also developed in addressing social
missions, social and environmental issues.

Unilever is marketing and customer oriented

company, where Unilever tries to achieve benefits
from at all kinds of platforms so that we can get
reach and create engagement. Effective use of
digital media is important because it is influencing
shoppers through channels.
Based on the information given in the case study, Unilever has been able to create outstanding
brands that have gained a large market share. The Axe and the Dove brands, have been labeled
as two of the most successful brands by Unilever. The two famous brands have enabled the
company to reach the targeted population in the required time.

 The company has positioned the two brands in the market in such a way that they meet
the required demand. The Axe brand mainly targets heterosexual males. Through media
channels like Comedy central, Spike, ESPN and MTV, it has been able to reach the
targeted audience. Other channels such as print media and social sites like Facebook and
Twitter have also been used to reach the segmented market.
 On the other hand, the Dove brand targets all women by selling the message that every
woman could be beautiful if they used the brand. The company has shifted from the
traditional methods of advertising whereby it used celebrities and models to one that uses
women of different sizes, colors, shapes, and age to display the real woman (Kotler&
Keller, 2012).
 In its efforts to reach the target audience, Unilever has made use of online services and
Dove films. This has improved the performance of the brand because through the
processes and programs, it has become possible to reach the target population.