Keith WeedChief Marketing & Communications OfficerUnilever plc

Marketing and InsightsAre we ready for tomorrow?

@keithweed/KeithWeedUnilever

[Amanda getting speaking points from Gayle, short bios for Keith and Stan sent.]

Thanks Gail and hello everybody. I hope you enjoyed your food. Now let me add some food for your mind!

Today Stan and I will be talking to you about our vision for the world of marketing and insights, and set the challenge as to whether our industry is ready for it.

And well then offer ourselves up for some Q&A at the end.

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But firstly, who is Unilever? We are a mass market consumer goods company serving 2bn people a day, from soap to soup, in 190 countries. We are the largest tea, ice cream, soap and deodorant company in the world. So whether you are washing your hair with Tresemme, your face with Dove or eating Ben & Jerrys we are searching how to best serve your needs.

And like all good businesses, at Unilever we have a point of view on the future that is shaping the context in which we are doing business. But we are not just about predicting the future based on past trends. Instead we are focused on shaping that future, being pioneers, and ensuring that we get to the future first.

In short, we are transforming our business model to ensure that as marketers we deliver brand-led sustainable growth.

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2014 rankings:13 brands globally with turnover over 1 billion euro15 brands globally with turnover over 1 billion USDOnly 1 brand (Dove) in the USA with turnover over 1 billion USD

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The internet of thingsSocial visual

Convergence of digital / ecommerceRoboticsData

Content curationProgrammatic buyingMobile everywhere

THE PACE OF CHANGEwill only get faster

The world has changed significantly in just five years. You can see some of the things on the screen that are revolutionising marketing.

The combination of mobile, social, data means we are now constantly connected. During 2008 the number of things connected to the internet exceeded the number of people on earth, but by 2020 there will be 50 billion. US programmatic ad spend topped $10 billion in 2014 and will double by 2016.* Two years ago if you had said the programmatic to a marketer most of them would have looked at you blankly. The pace of change will never be this slow again.

A recurring discussion between Stan and myself is whether market research, consumer understanding and consumer insights has changed enough to give us what we need in this new world.

*http://www.emarketer.com/Article/US-Programmatic-Ad-Spend-Tops-10-Billion-This-Year-Double-by-2016/10113124

A B C

Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that succeeding in this new world is about jumping on each and every new trend that comes along. In this changing world, consistency is a valuable commodity.

And so today I am going to talk to you about the future of marketing through the things are always or should consistently at the heart of any marketer.

The ABC of marketing if you will.5

A

First in that list is A for audience. Always the most important, the centre of a marketers universe.

But do we really understand todays audience with true insight?

And how, in preparing for the future, as an industry can you move us from insight to FORESIGHT, to help us see what is coming in this fast changing and complicated world? 6

NEVER OFFLINEmobile, social, data

Our audience has never been so bombarded with messages. The combination of mobile, social and data has meant that marketing is no longer confined to the living room but is any time, any place, any where. Estimates are that by 2016 around a quarter of Africas billion-strong population will have a smartphone an increase of more than 70 per cent. Here in New York, 80% of the population on food stamps have a smart phone. Mobile is going to change connectivity more than the internet. 74% of consumers use a smartphone to watch online videos, up 13% from two years ago.

This is 24/7 content. But because of that, people have become experts in filtering out the noise. Particularly millenials who have been marketed to in this way their whole lives and have an expert bullshit detector! They have literally never know a world that was not fully interactive.

To break through we need two things. Insights into how to engage people at the right time, in the right space, with the right message. And to be able to appraise the impact of that snackable content that does break through on mobile, through Vines and so on. TV centric measurement just doesnt cut it anymore. We need always-on insights and measurement for always-on people.

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Source: The Futures Company & Kantar Retail: The Future Shopper Study

NOW

BEFORE

TODAYS CONSUMERhas a different journey

Take for example, the path to purchase for the new always-on consumers. This a very different journey to the linear journey in the past. Instead our audiences navigate the spiders web of the new world which you can see here on the right. This may or may not involve a trip to a store, but almost certainly involves a complex research process using multiple devices, which leaves a digital trail littered with multiple relevant moments where a brand could engage.

This requires a far more nuanced understanding of our consumers than in the past. Do we have a sufficiently developed understanding of how our audience are navigating the new world today? Do we understand when are the most important moments to be present to add the most value?

This is about multi-touch purchase for consumers who lean forward, rather than back. Consumers who crave constant interactions with their favourite content, and their favourite brands. They are no longer interested in simply watching, but interacting at the highest level . An understanding of this audience and process this cannot be delivered using out dated models, old thinking and a reliance on averages.

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INDIVIDUALS not aggregates

We can no longer to afford to think in aggregates rather than individuals. The tools that helped optimise the spray-and-pray power of yesterday no longer work.

Instead, we need to move from simply talking to people, to building relationships with them. More than simply targeting a segment like mums or millenials or Muslims, its about hearing and responding to each and every voice.

As hyper targeting is becoming increasingly possible, and we need to think about how to optimise content communication for individuals to build these relationships. Do we have the right tools to respond to this individualisation of audience. Not yet.

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TV CENTRIC MEASUREMENTLINEARMASS MARKETINGHYPER TARGETED MARKETING

CONTENT EVERYWHEREMULTI TOUCH

Are we moving at the same speed as the revolution? We fine-tuned our tools for yesterdays world, but we are not keeping up with a world that is increasingly characterised by being 24// content, multi touch and hyper targeted.

My challenge to you as an industry here: what tools are you as an industry innovating to capture the brand equity building power of a lean forward generation versus a lean back?

[Soundbite]: we need the insights for a lean forward generation.

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B

Moving on to the B, which is for brands. They will always be the growth engine for companies wanting to differentiate and add value.

Brands can, and are, bouncing off this new audience. With the explosion in connections weve seen, our brands have opportunities to reach our audience in ways we could never have dreamed of before.

But to truly benefit from this opportunity brand builders need the insights of the research industry to better understanding the stickability of their brands and their communications in order to build brand love.

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CLARITY AND CONSISTENCYmust be a priority

The first is consistency, and Dove is a good example to use here. Dove started its journey of improving the self esteem of women over ten years ago. And it has proven its stickability because it has become a brand that matters to people.

We have to start being more thoughtful about the importance of consistency and clarity of proposition in the cluttered always-on world I just talked about. Always-on content should not mean always-new content.

Multiple messages in a year for a brand can serve to fragment it, rather than build it. Consistency and clarity has to be a priority for brand builders today and in the future, and the positioning tools we have need to reflect this priority. 12

The people who shoot it have to be young. The people who cut it have to be young. The hosts have to be young.

If something is created in a boardroom, it will not work.Shane Smith, VICE

BE AUTHENTICto penetrate the culture

Brands with clarity on positioning and consistency are the brands that become routed in culture. And this means they can become an authentic and relevant part of the cultural conversation.

As Shane Smith, CEO of Vice said to me when I met him recently, authenticity is not created in the boardroom. Your brand must have earned the right to be part of that conversation by penetrating the culture of its audience. Todays brands are not built in boardrooms. They are crafted on teenagers mobiles in skate parks, in bedrooms and in school yards all around the world.

A brand that is not an authentic part of our culture, a brand that does not have meaning, whether that be global or local, is not a brand that will be relevant for long. 13

BRANDS WITH PURPOSE marketing FOR people

Consistency and authenticity are key ingredients to building a brand with purpose. What do I mean by that? In todays social media worlds brands need to give more than just functional benefits. People dont want a brand to buy, but an idea to buy into. Responsible consumption sales, to borrow a phrase from the Boston Consulting Group, are growing at 9% per year, and account for 15% of sales in US retail chains.

This is what I call marketing FOR people. Its Dove raising the self esteem of woman all around to world with our recent #speakbeautiful campaign or Ben & Jerrys marching alongside thousands of others against Climate Change here in New York last September.

Building brands with purpose is about moving from marketing to consumers to mattering to people.

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FRAGMENTATIONBROADCASTMARKETING TO CONSUMERSMATTERING TO PEOPLE

CONSISTENCYCREATE WITH

Consistency, authenticity and purpose. Those are the traits of brands that have cultural meaning, and brands that will last.

My ask for you here is how to do you as an industry help us move beyond cultural insights to a deeper understanding of cultural tensions? And more importantly, how we can leverage those cultural tensions to build stronger brands?

Soundbite: insights into cultural tensions will build stronger brands.

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C

Audiences are connected and engaged like never before. Brands with consistency, authenticity and purpose are the ones that will win in the future. What is the C that follows these? Of course its content.

In retrospect, wasnt the 30second TV ad world easy? To test, to model, to air. Today inside we face multiple medias all with different formats, different devices being viewed in different places and on demand.

For brands to connect with their audience in this world they need content that doesnt just cut through the clutter, but that inspires people to talk about it, share it, interact with it, and help build it.

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TALKABLE CONTENTinspiring our audience

An example I want to share in this section is All Things Hair. Every year over 11 billions searches are made about hair on Google. But it isnt branded products that people are looking for, its inspiration and solutions. Working with Google, we can identify hair trends up to three months in advance with up to 90% accuracy. We then developed a YouTube channel that would answer these hair needs, working with vloggers to create video content that provides credible voice which works across many brands to give people the content that they are actually physically searching for.

Within ten weeks we were in the top 10 most engaged brands on YouTube.

All Things Hair works we thought differently about content. We moved from optimising our broadcast content to inspiring content creation with true utility and talkability. We already have the expertise in generating insights, developing TVC, testing them and making tweaks on spend based on MMMs. We can optimise away. But what we need to build the future are insights that will inspire great omni- channel communication that has the potential to go viral. We are looking for the next All Things Hair. 17

Unilever Project Sunlight

RECALL TO ENGAGEMENTnew metrics for new ideas

The second point to make when thinking about content for tomorrows world is about moving from metrics that are simply numerical to ones that are attitudinal.

We all know the time tested techniques which measure the recall of communication and its ability to persuade people. This is fine for brands that are focused on simply selling more of their product. But what we are trying to do through our brands with purpose is create movements. Brands such as Dove, Ben & Jerrys, and Unilever Project Sunlight which you see on the screen here are about something bigger than selling more units. They are about marketing for people, and creating a better world.

What these brands needs is the ability to assess the engagement and talkability potential of the content we create and put out there. Metrics that assess how much we can make a difference.

12 COMPANIES, 1 GOALUnilever Project Sunlight

The final point I want to make around content is about the changing agency model. This is a shot I took in the Command Centre of the launch of Unilever Project Sunlight. 12 companies working together through the night to launch this incredible movement about creating a bright future for our children in five countries. 12 companies and us, all working together towards the same objective, seeding the film, creating bespoke content for influencers, engaging with bloggers and reacting to sentiment.

To build the best content and to get it to our audiences requires true partnership. We need to break down the walls which exist between agencies and partners and encourage a holistic approach, with the clients best interests at the forefront.

We should be working together to deliver more than a whole. No more siloed deliverables for mobile, for social, for strategy, for execution. But an integrated and orchestrated approach where 1+1 can equal 3.

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OPTIMISING BROADCASTMEASURING RECALL AND PERSUASIONSILOED DELIVERABLESORCHESTRATED AND INTEGRATED

CREATING TALKABILITYASSESSING ENGAGEMENT

Being ready for tomorrow means thinking about three things differently the content we create, the way we measure it, and the people we create it with.

There are big asks for your industry. But getting to the future first was never going to be easy! The world around us is going to change very rapidly..machines are becoming very intelligent. Think Watson and beyond!! Talking about that let me introduce you to someone

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LET ME INTRODUCE OUR CURRENT&FUTURESr. VP OF CMI

Being ready for tomorrow means thinking about three things differently the content we create, the way we measure it, and the people we create it with.

There are big asks for your industry. But getting to the future first was never going to be easy!

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Stan SthanunathanSr. Vice PresidentConsumer & Market Insights @ssthanunathan

Not saying Robots will replace us. If Watson can do what humans were doing 3 years ago, the day robots do what we do is not very far off! The challenge is how do we stay ahead?

There are big asks for your industry. But getting to the future first was never going to be easy!

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The world of marketing is changing

As you have heard Keith tell you, the world of marketing is changing. The pace of change will never be this slow ever again!!23

We Cannot afford not to change

Can we, as insights specialists, afford not to change? No. and more importantly..24

WE NEED TO LEAD THE CHANGE

More importantly, how can we lead the change? We are closer to consumers than anyone else. We almost have the responsibility to lead the change. We have an unique, once in a lifetime opportunity ahead of us.what is going to drive that? How do we stay on top of that.25

A

B

C

D

Keith talked about the holy trinity of audience brands and content are just as relevant to succeeding in todays always-on and connected digital world as they were when the Mad Men ruled.

But there is a little something extra for marketers to think about today, and thats a Dits data.

So of course we couldnt talk about being ready for tomorrow without talking about data, the D of marketing.

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D

Audiences are connected and engaged like never before. In the process, huge amount of data is being spitted out these days..like never before.

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Today, the Biggest driver of change is data

We cannot escape this tsunami!28

Democratization

Disintermediation

Deluge

Data is fundamentally changing the world of insights in 3 ways

3 trends in the world of data which are transforming the insights industry. Let me briefly talk about each of these.

The need is to understand how data is changing the way companies need to respond in this nimble and agile world. Sometimes, big is not beautifulbig not necessarily better29

Disintermediation

Access to data is reducing the reliance on people who are collecting data. Value chains are getting squeezed. Everyone starts complaining about margin squeezeall that I would say is Welcome to the new world order!30

DemocrAtization

Cost of collecting data is crashing dramatically. Today you can pay for your research with a credit card and it could cost as little as 500$ and is accessible to a pizza shop owner in a strip mall. Data has become commodity. What happens to commodities prices fall. This is inevitable and is going to accelerate going forward. The good news is that market for data has expanded significantly31

Deluge

There is so much data out there. It is very often overwhelming. It is at a stage where it is humanly impossible to harness the power of all this data. Machines are taking over. You know that is going mainstream when you see TV ads for Watson analytics. Welcome to the world of smart-machine driven analytics world. So, what is the role of human beings in this situation?32

Data is the new Gold

We can keep saying this. But this is not going to make us great. Creating better mouse traps to mine the data is table stakes. There is a different breed of talent that is today outside the core insights industry as we knew it. How can we make sure these two tracks meet soon before it becomes too late?33

Its not about the data, Its about what WE do with it

My POV is that humans are important and will always be so. But this will happen if and only if we internalise that it is NOT about data34

I have the answer, what is your question?

It is not impossible for us to get to a stage where we say I have the answer, what is your questionIt is definitely within our realm of possibilities. This is where humans can play an important role going forward.

All this is easier said than done. 35

If this is our destination, we need a new mindset

We as a community need a big change of mind set. To me this is as important if not more than just learning new skills and creating new tech enabled platforms. I am saying this because in the past 5 years I have seen an accelerated change in development of the MR industry. The industry has sprung back into action and has generated tools and techniques like never before. I have never seen as many new entrants getting scale in the last 5 years as I have in the 25 years before that!!36

Providing inspiration & provocation to enable transformational actionsBeyond insights

This is our vision for the function within Unilever. Note the absence of the word insightsthat is deliberate. For us in the function it is all about creating impact based on transformational actions we inspire and provoke. Its a different role today than a few years ago. Welcome to revolution!37

This vision calls for an expanded set of skills and capabilities

To bring about revolution we all need new set of skills and capabilities. It is not about saying All the old people are obsolete and let me get new ones It is about taking what you have and inspire them to be the best that they are capable of and it is about inspiring them to see the world of possibilities and enable them to chart a course of action to get to the new world38

Human and Cultural FuturesDigital Insights in a Connected WorldStorytellingCognitive ScienceData Scientists

These are some of the new capabilities we are trying to create within39

So what do we need to do differently tomorrow?

The change of mind set is not just about WHAT you do but HOW you do it? WHAT you think is your mandate is?40

Risk MitigationImagining the Possibilities

Tried and Tested ToolsInnovative Approaches

Studying ConsumersBuilding relationships with People

Generating InsightsDriving Outcomes

Predicting the futureShaping the future

FromTo

From and to. This is not a comfortable journey. Path is full of obstacles. Some times your own partners dont want you to do that. The bigger question is How do we want to be seen and remembered by our organisation? Keith always tells me Give me you No Holds Barred action recommendations. You are not here to drive the business and not please people41

Leading change is in our DNA

To do all this, we had to go through a big change and shift of focus. Fortunately, leading change is in Unilevers DNA. 42

We have done it in the past

Research international 1962 etc43

And we are doing it again now

Over the past 2 years, we are reinventing the function againbecause we owe it to the business44

Creating the tools of tomorrow

Throw out numbers of pilots etc4 breakthrough technologies mainstreamed15 new technologies are in various stages of pilot across 45 different locations

Frankly, some of the technologies that I saw blew me away. Neither the owner of the tech nor us even for a moment thought it had insights application. Creative leadership and collaboration resulted in creation of new to the world approaches We are very excited with quite a few of them. These are becoming mainstream within Unilever and you will probably hear about them sooner than later!45

Tech enabled platforms

if only Unilever knows what it knows We want to liberate our people from grunt work. That is the only way they will be able to deliver above and beyond just process46

Partner Reward & recognition

Agency Reward Scheme. This is revolutionary. Everyone talks about partnership. We are putting money where the mouth is. We treat people who work on our account as part of our team and reward them similar to the way we reward our employees. People matter. 47

capability ProgrammesCreative Leadership

Inspiring LeadershipCMI AcademyBusiness Partnering

CMI Academy, ILP, Business Partnering, Creative Leadership (Add Logos for programmes) Change logo to creative leadership.

Training and developing your people is mission critical. You lose the right to complain about quality of people you have if you do not invest in their development. Ask not what your employees can do for you. Ask, what have you done to enable what you want them to do for the company?48

Galvanise and inspire all stakeholders

Finally, it is good to have vision, mission, training program, incentive structures etc. But all this will yield not as much if you dont inspire your people. That is usually relegated to a sheet of paper or a ppt deck that is circulated or a town hall that delivers vision. That in my view does not go far enough at all. Making people feel, live and breathe the vision is mission critical. Bringing vision to life in an experiential way is mission critical.Talk about Fusebox and the grand finale49

Vision internalisation

Our mission: accelerate this journey

How cool was that? Recording a CMI single in the same place where Beatles, Pink Floyd etc have recorded singles was an absolutely breathtaking and life defining experience. It created memories that will be shared with future generations as well!

We are now accelerating our journey very rapidly. We have a lot to do52

Our Belief is clear

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OR BE CHANGED

IF IT IS TO BE, IT IS UP TO US54

THANK YOU@ssthanunathan

Exciting days are ahead. Data is an enabler but we are the ones who will make a big difference. Never underestimate the power of this collective genius in this room.

If we apply our mind and motivate everyone around us, we will be a powerful force.

May the force be with you.

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