Episode 106 - Unilever Smart Fill Ad Reviewed by JPMorgan Chase, Performance Marketing World, Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Big Black Door
Would you get your detergent in a vending machine?
Hindustan Unilever launched the Smart Fill machine, where consumers can refill household products in their own containers. The ad, created by VMLY&R Commerce and chosen by Contagious, has won awards, but is it more than a great piece of internal comms for the company?
Working to cut down on plastic is a step in the right direction, but was this clip consumer facing enough or was the brand just talking to themselves? And does it stand out in a sea of sameness where all brands are focusing on sustainability?
Listen to the views of our marketing experts, Leah Rogers (Vice President of Branch Experience Design and Innovation, JPMorgan Chase), Lucy Shelley (Reporter at Performance Marketing World and host of the Attention Seekers podcast), Larry Smith (Senior Director for Consumer Marketing, Takeda Pharmaceuticals), and Gareth Turner (Founder, Big Black Door), and see what you think!
Episode 106 - Unilever Smart Fill Ad Reviewed by JPMorgan Chase, Performance Marketing World, Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Big Black Door
Automated Transcript
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is weekly show where brands review other brands' ads.
My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and I'm proud to be brought to you this week by Contagious Magazine who helped source the ad this week, so please go and check those guys out after the show. But before we see this week's ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Leah Rogers 0:29
Leah Rogers. I'm with JPMorgan Chase, and I'm the Vice President of Branch Experience Design and Innovation.
Lucy Shelley 0:37
Hi, I'm Lucy Shelley from Performance Marketing World and I am their Reporter and Host of our podcast, Attention Seekers.
Larry Smith 0:44
Hello, Larry Smith. I'm with Takeda Pharmaceuticals and I'm a Senior Director for Consumer Marketing for our brand Entyvio.
Gareth Turner 0:51
I'm Gareth Turner, I'm the Founder of Big Black Door, a new marketing consultancy.
Tom Ollerton 0:57
Wow, what a panel! Thank you so much for joining us this week, guys. So the question is, would you buy detergent from a vending machine? Unilever really cleverly created a machine that allows you to fill empty competitor bottles with Unilever products. This encourages the audience to reuse packaging, and maybe save some money. So let's see that now.
As is customary on the show, we're going to have a vote for how good you thought this execution was. So one, two, three... A three, a two, a two, and Leah is that a two? That is a low-scoring ad for Unilever. What was your take on that campaign?
Gareth Turner 3:41
Yeah, it was okay. I think they've won some Golden Lion... They won some... a Bronze Lion. But for me... I've seen it before. I've seen it in Asda, in Leeds, with sustainability project they've got going on for bigger brands, for multiple brands I should say, and private label. It's the right thing to be doing. It could have been bigger, better. It's not new news. I was, I was very surprised that that's a... a Cannes Lion winner.
Lucy Shelley 4:05
Well, I mean, at the beginning of the ad, it just reminds me of the... "You wouldn't steal a handbag" advert. That was what initially came to mind. Yeah, I mean, I think the initiative is great. And then, obviously, and the incentive is there and it's good to see such big brands kind of, in some ways, admitting that they are the cause as well, of a lot of this plastic that's out there. And you know, trying to kind of solve that. But the kind of the ad in general, I mean, the production quality was quite low. It didn't have the impact that I would have liked to have got from it, I would say.
Leah Rogers 4:36
I thought it was a great internal video, meaning that if you're an employee of the company, it's a great rallying cry. It aligns to a mission. But for a customer, we never quite got poignant around what's in it for the customer. For me, that's the real problem. It was talking to themselves versus talking to the customer.
Larry Smith 4:58
My first reaction was, yeah, to be smart and to be responsible. People are looking for brands to be socially responsible for people to step up and take responsibility. That's all good, feel good stuff. It's in a sea of sameness of everybody now standing up and taking responsibility. It was nice to see the CEO, though, that's atypical from at least from what I see. But I know that's what people are looking for, and standing up for these social causes and taking a stand. And, you know, it's right in their wheelhouse. And there was another term besides, "Drastic with plastic." I was looking up their social media that they're, "Eliminating virgin plastic." I hadn't heard that before. But yeah, they're trying to remove it. That makes sense, but I think they could’ve, it could have been better.
Tom Ollerton 5:32
What do you think would have made this better?
Gareth Turner 5:33
One of the examples that I've seen done before is a company called Algramo in 2020, in Chile. And what they did was take not just liquid products, not just branded liquid products, but they got anything that could be dispensed like dry detergent and powder. They put it in a vending machine, and they took it to underprivileged areas, and there's a cash saving for people, it's cheaper for them to buy it. So that would have made it better, to make it more accessible, to... As many people as possible, to scale it bigger than, than it looked like it was there and perhaps even make it open source. Allow like Asda have done in Leeds, allow other brands to take part. If you're really, if you're really passionate about reducing plastic, make it open source.
Lucy Shelley 6:17
Part of me thinks, "Okay, maybe it's speaking to a more local community." It doesn't need this big, expensive, big-budget show to kind of portray what the message is trying to get across. I also think it makes it look very half-hearted in a way because I think it doesn't get the engagement from it. There's no real connection to who it's going to help, who it's going to affect, and who it wants to help do that with as well. I think that's where it's missing out. My favorite part of the whole ad was actually when it kind of referenced itself as the issue and is now also up to us to change people's behaviours with it.
Leah Rogers 6:53
This is all about changing behaviour. But I just keep going back to like, is there a cost savings? Is there a more convenience play? Like, is there an amount? You know, like, maybe I don't, maybe I'm single, and I just don't need a giant tub of detergent? I just keep going back to what's in it for the customer? Because with anything new, if you can't answer that question, you can't change behaviour.
Tom Ollerton 7:19
But isn't the benefit that there's less plastic waste, like we're saving the planet here, right?
Leah Rogers 7:23
And that's fair. But like when you start to slice audiences in terms of people who will buy a product, or maybe pay a little bit more for more sustainability to our planet, I mean, you're talking about a percentage of individuals, and this is a mass product. And so for a mass product, you have to kind of open up and say, "Okay, for this audience, the environmental impact is completely going to drive the behaviour." But for the other 75% of users who have pressures at the pump, who have pressures of their enlarged grocery bills, or feeding their family, again, it goes back to what is going to drive their behaviour.
Tom Ollerton 8:06
Do you feel that this is solving a real problem, Larry?
Larry Smith 8:10
Talking to a guy who has my wife has put you know, 10 reusable bags in my trunk, and they've never come out for 10 years, I just don't even... I can't ever remember to bring them in. But also, I think that the theory I can bring from our industry of healthcare is that I think everybody's talking about societal impact is about outcomes. And you know, this is just touching a very, very tiny part of the population and a tiny part of you know, when you look at those oceans of plastic, if they're really committed, there would be a full on effort to work with some association to a larger purpose would even be more meaningful and saying, "Hey, we're gonna eliminate half the plastic waste by the year, you know, 2030," or whatever that is, would be something that I think would be more meaningful than just sort of a chest beating feel good... We now feel better about ourselves because we're linking ourselves to this really horrific societal and ecological issue.
Tom Ollerton 9:02
What should the industry be learning from this, this idea, not the execution, not the video itself, the concept?
Gareth Turner 9:07
What I like about this is how one can lean into a challenge and turn it to a commercial advantage potentially, if you can get the right scale. So in the UK, we've seen the plastic bag charge. So we have changed behaviour in the UK by putting a relatively small charge on a plastic bag, five pence and a lot of people are in a fortunate position where five pence doesn't really make a material difference to their lives. But that was enough to change, change behaviour. How can brands lean into a challenge like those or like the plastic crisis? How can you lean into those challenges? And do something that's good for all, good for you as a business but also good for the end consumer?
Tom Ollerton 9:47
Leah, Lucy, Larry, Gareth, thank you so much for your time.
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