3. Overview
Origins of Unilever Simon Clift
Operational style Marketing lessons
Strategic style learnt
Examples of strategic
Future prospects
style
Competitive environment
Current strategies
4. The origins of Unilever
Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch multinational corporation that
owns consumer products in;
 Food and Beverages
 Cleaning agents
 Personal care
Created in 1930 from a merger between the British soap
maker Lever Brothers and Margarine Unie
As palm oil was a major raw material for both soaps and
margarines
5. Operational Style
Unileverlisation
Mergers and acquisitions – grew through
repeated mergers of companies who usually
retained their names and brands. This
encourage strong belief and initiative to de-
centralise control
Conglomerate
6. Strategic Style
Research and Innovation
Localisation
Diversification into a broad category
Multiple segment specialisation - developing
products to target every segment. Serving
multiple markets whilst differentiating products
in a way that meets needs of each segment
Developing in emerging markets
7.
8. Brand Expansion
“The Beauty Soap of Film Stars”
Icon Brand
12. Concentrating on emerging markets
Understanding different consumer needs
Offering products at different price points
13. Developing and Emerging Market
Opportunity
Bottom of the Pyramid
Multi-trillion dollar opportunity
Billions of people out of poverty in the next
10 years
15. Competitive environment
Key Competitors
Proctor and Gamble
Nestle
Colegate-palmolive
Kraft
Supermarket private lables
The management of the smaller brands slowed
down its growth.
Whilst their competitors concentrated on global
development and economies of scale.
16. Current Strategies
Downsizing brand portfolio –stream line the
business portfolio to reflect vitality concept
1,500 – 400 master brands
Also, acquisition of high profile food brands
18. Simon Clift
First chief marketing officer for Unilever
“Unilever was effectively a holding company – a conglomerate. That led
to a very complex brand portfolio, with thousands of formulations,
positionings, and ways of developing advertising.”
(Marketing Week)
Centralised marketing culture
Concentrates on building the brands
New Unilever brand identity
20. Marketing Lessons learnt
1. Be forward thinking and with constant
innovation – looking beyond organisation’s
walls.
2. Defend its territory through growth and
diversification
3. Bigger is not always better.
companies need to contract and recognise its
weaknesses.
21. Future Prospects
How will Vitality be brought amongst all their
brands?
How will they overcome two contradicting
values?
24. References
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