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Unilever Makes Mobile its Key Marketing Strategy

6/28/2011
According to an article in new media age, Unilever plans to use mobile as its primary marketing channel within 10 years, in a strategy that includes covering mobile data charges for those interacting with its brands.

Currently, the fast moving consumer goods giant is paying for the mobile data charges incurred by people who download and use the mobile app for its Lynx Stream deodorant brand campaign. The app lets users share photos and updates of a night out via their social networks. Unilever has struck a deal with Openmarket to minimize the cost for those using the app.

Josh Dean, senior brand manager at Unilever, said the brand paid for the cost of interacting with the app so its appeal wasn’t limited to those with unlimited mobile data plans.

“The app has already launched and the feedback so far has been really good,” Dean said in the article. “The retention and use of those who have downloaded the app has been really high. One thing that’s important to our audience is their phones. Lynx’s audience spends more time on their phones than any other media, plus they go out a lot."

Unilever has also been proactive in using O2 Media’s SMS-based ad service You Are Here to promote its Lynx brand among mainstream mobile users.

Speaking last week at the IAB Mobile Engage event, Jay Altschuler, Unilever’s global communications planning director, said mobile would be its primary engagement channel over the next decade in an effirt to double its business by 2020.

“Mobile is the most-used channel in growth markets,” he said, adding that Unilever will place mobile advertising, couponing and commerce at the core of its strategy in these markets over the next 10 years.

It’s also employing more upmarket mobile executions, such as on Apple’s iAd network, for which it’s a global partner, having launched campaigns for Knorr, Magnum and Lynx.

Altschuler said so far the company was seeing average engagement of one to two minutes for its iAd campaigns.

Click here to read the original article from new media age.

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