Ashwien Bisnajak – Unilever

In an insightful discussion on Unilever’s approach to market growth and promotions, Ashwien Bisnajak, Consumer and Market Insights Lead at Unilever reveals how the company strategically balances brand building with the realities of modern retail and consumer expectations. Unilever adapts to drive both short-term sales and long-term brand loyalty by investing in promotions, and retail media, and tackling challenges, including margin management and category stewardship, while focusing on KPIs such as penetration and ’moments that matter’ to consumers.

Drivers and Barriers to Growth

For Unilever, penetration is viewed as a critical KPI for sustainable growth. Defined by the increasing number of households purchasing Unilever products, penetration reflects not just popularity but the brand’s relevance in consumers’ lives. Ensuring wide, consistent product availability forms the foundation for this growth, supporting the company’s ambition to reach more households across diverse markets.

“Ensuring the physical availability of the product is the foundation on which you build your marketing activities,” Ashwien states, continuing, “If you invest heavily in marketing but people can’t find the product, everything falls apart. People won’t buy the product if they can’t access it and online can’t fully cover all gaps. So, having strong availability in major supermarkets, especially in the retail channel, is crucial.”

Despite its strengths, Unilever faces practical barriers to growth, including retailer margin pressures and SKU adjustments. Balancing brand-building investments with the financial realities of maintaining profitable margins is crucial. Certain SKUs may need to be streamlined to prioritise those with strong demand and viable margins, allowing Unilever to reinvest in brands that offer solid, sustainable returns. As Ashwien puts it, “It’s better to focus on where we can cut back and move forward with brands that deliver good margins and can generate consumer demand.”

‘’Ensuring the physical availability of the product is the foundation on which you build your marketing activities.”

Breaking shopping habits through promotions

A rule of thumb within Unilever is that 60% of the marketing budget should go to brand-building activities and 40% to sales activation. However, this can vary depending on the season and brand.  For example, nutrition brands are heavily promotion-driven, requiring ongoing price promotions to break shopper routines and drive consideration. Ashwien explains:

“Price promotions are very behaviour-driven. We know from research that shoppers are usually following their ordinary shopping list. What can interrupt this pattern is a sign on the shelf itself—a price promotion signal. That catches their attention, prompting them to consider the other product.” He argues that it might not be the price itself that makes the shopper consider the other product, but rather the break of the shopper’s habitual process.”

Regarding the long- and short-term effects of promotions, Ashwien agrees that there is certainly a short-term effect on sales. But contrary to Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s recommendations, which say that promotions do not have a long-term brand effect, Ashwien argues that it can.

“The fact that someone has bought the product means it’s already part of their shopper journey. They have the product, they use it, and they engage with it, which has a lasting brand effect.” Furthermore, when people have products at home, the usage increases simply because they are there, “If you have three jars of peanut butter in your pantry, you’re likely to use more of it than if you only have one.”

Consequently, price promotions can encourage people to switch brands, a trend that Unilever also has noticed, “We know from long-term research that you lose at least half of your buyers each year and need to win them back, plus a bit more if you want to grow.” Brand loyalty is therefore only a small part of the picture – it has an impact and is good to continue investing in – but it’s a relatively small group that repeatedly buys your brand each year.

Taking this into account, monitoring competitors’ promotions and retail activities is essential. As category captain in many categories, the responsibility does not only lie within growing one’s own brand but also in growing the category, expanding it to bring more consumers into specific product groups.

“Price promotions are very behaviour-driven. We know from research that shoppers are usually following their ordinary shopping list. What can interrupt this pattern is a sign on the shelf itself.”

Retail media

Retail media—paid in-store advertising by manufacturers—is on the rise. This has led Unilever to shift its marketing spend to reflect the growing influence of in-store and digital retail promotions. However retail media’s long-term brand impact isn’t fully understood, and it’s currently measured mainly for short-term sales impact, not brand perception. “As the shift continues and we invest more in retail media—in displays in-store, for instance—we know it boosts sales just like a promotion would, but its long-term impact on the brand isn’t as well understood yet. That’s something we’re currently investigating,” Ashwien says.

Regarding the formats of retail media, research shows that search is more effective than display. “We don’t yet know precisely how to optimise display within retail media, so we’re conducting new research on that.” The focus is more on the format than the creative itself. “Format requirements consider aspects like how long the ad should be, whether the Unilever logo is visible, whether the brand name is mentioned, and accessibility for people with disabilities. There’s a lot of research on how best to achieve this.”

“As the shift continues and we invest more in retail media, we know it boosts sales just like a promotion would, but its long-term impact on the brand isn’t as well understood yet. That’s something we’re currently investigating.”

Moments that matter

At Unilever, Category Entry Points (CEPs) are reflected in what the company calls “Moments That Matter,” which encapsulate the critical points in the customer journey when a consumer might think of Unilever’s brands. These moments are essential for ensuring that Unilever’s brands come to mind at the right time—whether at home, in-store, or while planning a purchase.

For globally distributed brands like Dove or AXE, international research on “Moments That Matter” has already been conducted, so translating those into category entry points is relatively straightforward. For local brands, there may be research conducted at the national or regional level to tailor CEPs to specific consumer behaviours and preferences, “but sometimes we rely on the expertise of those working with the brand to determine these moments,” Ashwien says.

Unilever continuously conducts relevance checks for CEPs within its campaign tracking, “We now have a core set of metrics we always track in campaigns, allowing us to check if certain entry points remain relevant over time”. But more importantly, it builds the foundation for Unilever to switch to a stronger focus on up-to-date brand metrics. This approach leads to better evaluation of the brands’ position, allows for agility in fine-tuning marketing strategies and prioritising the moments that have the strongest impact.

“We now have a core set of metrics we always track in campaigns, allowing for agility and prioritising moments that matter.”