Unilever, a consumer packaged goods company, has a new CEO at the helm — and he’s set to make a huge investment in creators for advertising. As reported by Marketing Week, Fernando Fernandez, Unilever’s CEO, wants to capitalize on creators in order to drive “desire at scale.”
In a fireside chat, Fernandez pointed to a rising tide of consumer wariness. “Today, brands are by default suspicious,” he explained. “Messages from brands coming from corporations are suspicious messages.”
According to Fernandez, consumers are “much more discerning, much more demanding” nowadays. The CEO’s solution? Implement a large word-of-mouth strategy he referred to as “others say.”
“Creating marketing activity systems in which others can speak for your brand at scale is very important,” he added. To reach his ambition, Fernandez is focusing on leveraging creators, particularly those with local audiences.
“There are 19,000 zip codes in India, there are 5,764 municipalities in Brazil,” he said. “I want one influencer in each of them. In some of them, I want 100, but at least I want one in each of them.”
Is this a good strategy? Sure, in theory. But it’s worth noting that this strategy is far from new. According to recent data, the influencer marketing industry was valued at $24 billion in 2024.
Other companies are seeing huge success from this pivot. Audible, a subsidiary of Amazon, previously collaborated with influencers spanning numerous genres like gaming, style, and entertainment. These sponsored videos amassed 83 million views, demonstrating enormous reach. Meanwhile, Adidas chose Instagram as the platform of choice. By using influencers for its marketing campaign, the shoe company received 12,000 entries for its #MyNeoShoot competition, with its Instagram following increasing by 41,000 thanks to the platform.
Clearly, Fernandez hopes to follow in these footsteps with his investment in local creators. And given the scale of Unilever, he might just succeed.
