Creative Performance Recommendation Engine
Unilever Canada’s In-house creative studio develops thousands of digital creative assets (video, display, social media content, etc.) across the business targeting a wide variety of audiences. The challenge is to streamline performance learnings and insights on which creative asset will have the strongest impact so that the design team is armed with optimal best practices from the hundreds of campaigns that are launched annually. This is particularly relevant for campaigns that are focused on driving online actions (purchase, sign up, download coupon, etc.) vs what has traditionally been a focus on top of mind awareness that impacts purchase while in a physical store.
We are interested in ideas on how to create a platform that can assess previous creative asset performance to predict the potential success of new concepts being considered for future campaigns. We would specifically want to focus this solution on Beauty and Personal Care brands initially, but the proposed solution should be scalable to expand it to include other Unilever Canada categories such as Foods, Ice Cream, Homecare, and well-being (vitamins).
Future of Consumer Engagement in Canada
Social commerce is a rapidly growing market that is expected to reach over $600B globally in the next 7 years. Here in Canada, content-based social commerce has already started to take off (i.e. purchasing within social apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest).
We need to understand what should Unilever Canada expect in terms of social commerce in the Canadian market and how can Unilever Canada be best prepared.
Modelling to Optimize Media Activity Based on Product Availability
Unilever Canada’s Digital Marketing activities mean there are a large variety of dynamic creative assets in the market on an ongoing basis. These assets can be dynamically delivered based on weather, time of day, and other parameters using our Creative Automation platform.
We are interested in ideas on how to create a parameter that provides logic to our Creative Automation platform that would indicate if the product is at risk of being out of stock in the coming week based on point of sales (POS) velocity for the identified stores in the Postal code related to the ads running in that market. For example, if we are running a Dove body wash campaign that is featuring a Pomegranate variant that is projected to be out of stock in the coming week at Toronto stores in the M4K region based on projections and POS data, then the system should switch to a different Dove body wash variant instead.
OMNI Channel: Assortment & Market Share
From the perspective of omni-channel sales and marketing, it is ideal for every retailer and supplier to be able to understand the entire universe of commerce. How can we make use of certain data to help us understand market churn and how well Unilever Canada is doing from an individual retailers’ perspective. We are interested to make use of data to help us uncover segments that could be untapped sources to advertise and convert consumers.
We need to understand how Unilever Canada can interact with consumers through omni-channels beyond the traditional channels like advertisement and social media to offer an assortment and expand market share.
Pandemic Projection of Consumer Buying Patterns
As travel restrictions continue to be in effect and potential changes in travel patterns occur as a result of the pandemic, we need to understand
- the impact of local tourism and staycations on basket sizes and shopping patterns.
- the impact of ‘Made in Canada’ call-outs within product categories that will have a positive, neutral or negative impact on sales
Post-Pandemic Projection of Consumer Buying Patterns (Ice Cream)
We need to understand the link between dichotomy in the economy and category promotional reliance. For example:
- Categories that were historically highly promotionally reliant (% sold depends on promotion) like Ice Cream will see a split. We hypothesize that the Value/Regular/Economy segments may continue to see promotional reliance. However, Premium and Super Premium segments may drive inflation and be less promotionally reliant driven by an uneven economic recovery boosting consumer confidence in a segment-specific manner.
- Segments within categories that saw an acceleration of OMNI channel/e-commerce adoption during the pandemic will continue to lead the way post-pandemic. If the Super Premium and Premium segments outgrew Value/Regular/Economy in OMNI channel/e-commerce between Mar 2020 – Present, then the momentum will continue in the months to come making the winners win and losing segments lag
Post-Pandemic Projection of Consumer Buying Patterns (Soft Drinks)
Brands such as Red Bull, Coke/Pepsi have historically been on restaurant menus and naturally part of meal bundles and have benefited from the shift to takeout, online ordering and food delivery through aggregators.
We need to understand how CPG suppliers and retailers can predict consumer trends in FMCG categories to make informed decisions in order to expand market share in these categories post-pandemic.
Sustainability Model
Today’s consumers have started to become more sustainability-conscious which is affecting their purchasing behaviour and decision. This is especially prominent in the younger generations such as the millennials and Gen-Z. Suppliers like Unilever Canada also have a significant role to play in reducing carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emission by incorporating a sustainability model in our manufacturing practices. Hence, with penetration and basket size continuing to grow within e-commerce, there is an opportunity for both manufacturers and retailers to take a leadership role in the sustainability space to mitigate the excess packaging and emissions that are particularly present in a ship-to-home model.
We need to understand how manufacturers and retailers can partner to mitigate the environmental impact associated with the e-commerce channel (i.e. circular recycling models, supply chain transformation, etc.). Are there quick wins that companies can tackle in the short term?
The Impact of Influencers and Social Streaming/Channels/Posts on Consumer Search Trends
More consumers are engaging with Influencers, social streaming/channels/posts prior to making their purchases, online or in-store.
We need to understand how the content is used by the influencers and channels are influencing how consumers search for our products online.
Variance of Consumer Language Across Different E-commerce Sites
Consumers have different destinations for our products being purchased on e–commerce platforms. While the products overlap across these retailer sites, the consumer journey and experience are completely different.
We need to understand how different consumers are looking for the same product, across different e-commerce platforms/channels.