Unilever : Digital Khiladi No.1

Unilever is the Adage Digital Marketer of the year(2007). You can read the article here...

Post-its for personal archives...

-None of Unilever's campaigns was purely a digital campaign. Each was woven inextricably with other media and marketing tactics, such as TV spots, PR, content integration and shopper marketing.

- Digital is today a critical part of the storytelling for our brands - says Rob Master, the North American Media Director.

- The key to the digital efforts is what Rob calls "superdistribution," the idea of getting web programs, most often video, picked up by other media - most often for free.

- Reverse Repurposing : We used to repurpose things from television for the internet. Now the ideas we have are so rich and creative ... we're able to feed that into all these other channels from digital.

- A 30-second ad is a story we pull together for consumers on TV. Digital is an extension of that storytelling in typically longer format. And the richness of the stories we can tell is a very important part of the strategy!

Evolution of our Business

It is heartening to see Dove "Evolution" - Ogilvy, Toronto's viral-video-turned-commercial that re-creates the multi-step process of turning an average beauty into a billboard-worthy babe win the film Grand Prix at Cannes yesterday...It's unarguably a great idea, greatly executed!!

Apparently the TVC first entered in the viral video category...but then the jury took a call and shifted it to the film category as they felt real strong about the idea!

Was reading the write-up on adage.com a while ago. Picked up these...

1. The spot also earned the Cyber Grand Prix earlier this week.

2. "We moved it from one category to another [corporate image] because we felt that strongly about it", said Bob Scarpelli, film jury Chairman.

3. Redefine the categoryScarpelli also suggested that awarding Dove the top honor could possibly lay down the groundwork for redefinition of the film category itself.

"It's interesting that this particular piece of film actually started out as a viral video on the internet," he said.

"It didn't sway the jury one way or the other, but we thought it is indicative of the way our industry is changing. Someday viral films, mobile phone films, should be in this category, because it's not the television category, it's the film category. Maybe that would be more reflective of reality today and in the future."

I feel Evolution was the right choice. Would have been disappointed if Sony Paint had clinched it. Feel 'Paint'is a bold re-enactment of the 'Balls' film...Great craft but somewhat rehashed idea.

Lets hope to see more viral and mobile films here in India as well where at the moment a very substantial part of our creative fraternity is still obsessed with big banner films where the definition of better = more expensive films!

Inch by inch our business is evolving towards a mash of multiple platforms, media neutral, un-silo creative solutions...And it's coming faster than we anticipated.

Next step in Evolution. Revolution:-)