Since taking over as Unilever CEO in March 2025, Fernando Fernandez has been clear in his belief that creator marketing is what will drive impact for the consumer goods giant over traditional advertising channels.
Speaking to an audience of investors at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference yesterday (17 February), Fernandez has doubled down on that message, stating Unilever is driving a “social-first demand model”.
Source: Shutterstock/JHVEPhoto
Since taking over as Unilever CEO in March 2025, Fernando Fernandez has been clear in his belief that creator marketing is what will drive impact for the consumer goods giant over traditional advertising channels.
Speaking to an audience of investors at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference yesterday (17 February), Fernandez has doubled down on that message, stating Unilever is driving a “social-first demand model”.
“I’m absolutely convinced that the times of big corporate big brand messages are gone,” Fernandez claimed.
Instead Unilever, which owns brands including Dove, Hellmann’s and Vaseline, is building an “army” of creators. The company is currently working with 300,000 influencers.
Unilever is dialling up the focus on its beauty and wellbeing division under Fernandez’s leadership, with over half of those 300,000 creators working on brands in that portfolio. In the last year alone, the company has increased the number of creators it works with in its beauty and wellbeing division from 75,000 to 180,000.
The time of lazy marketing, a couple of ads a year for a couple of innovations, is gone.
Fernando Fernandez, Unilever
The FMCG giant is also emphasising speed in its new approach. The company increased the number of assets it produces for beauty and wellbeing brands sevenfold last year, Fernandez said.
“This is only possible through the adoption of AI at scale in content creation,” he explained.
While many marketers reject the notion of fast wear-out of ads in traditional media, Fernandez clearly believes there is a short shelf life for influencer marketing. The company has doubled its frequency of influencer content posting since last year, with the lifespan of a social video now sitting at four days.
“The time of lazy marketing, a couple of ads a year for a couple of innovations, is gone,” Fernandez said. “Marketing today is hard work.”
Ensuring Unilever’s brands are “young-spirited” has been a priority, he said, citing the work already done on Vaseline. The 155-year-old brand drove 12% volume growth in the last two years by tapping into social media.
Across all its brands, the company will aim to drive “creation of a significant amount of quality content for algorithmic preference”, Fernandez added.
Showing up where consumers are
Ecommerce is another priority for Unilever, with the business working hard to grow its presence. As AI is reshaping how the company creates content, so too is it reshaping how consumers shop.
Yesterday, Unilever announced a partnership with Google designed to accelerate its AI capabilities and stay in-tune with the changing ways consumers choose brands.
“We really believe that in the future, the consumer journey of discovery, of brand and shopping will be more conversational, will be done with much more presence of agents,” Fernandez said.
Unilever commits to investing ‘where it matters most’ as it ups marketing spend
Despite the talk of future-facing work with creators and engaging AI agents, the Unilever CEO also emphasised the importance of more traditional physical availability.
The company’s brands want to show up in a big way in store, he said, citing the example of the launch for Persil Wonder Wash, which saw the brand take over whole aisles.
“We really believe that in context of media fragmentation, physical presence in a store is more important than ever,” Fernandez asserted. “We want to enter a store and feel that is a Unilever store.”