Digital Communication Assignment Week 3

WHY

Unilever describes its purpose as making sustainable living the worldwide norm. They are directing their work towards a better future. They express this mission through various channels and products. Among other things they provide support for sustainable farming and forest management, empowerment of women and health programs for children.

HOW

Unilever not only promotes sustainability through its products, projects and campaigns but also sets a good example itself by reducing their environmental impact with the aim of halving their “environmental footprint of […] products” by 2020. Another way they stand out from the competition is how they value their employees: their programme Unilever Heroes for instance regularly rewards and promotes employees that have shown outstanding commitment and helped Unilever improve.

WHAT

As Unilever states on their website they sell products that make people “look good, feel good and get more out of life”. So what they are selling through their products is confidence and increased life quality. Their emphasis on this is what differentiates them from other similar brands. They have managed to establish a reputation of a respectable brand that cares for their consumers and does everything necessary to provide them with the best quality products.

BHAG

Unilever is deeply passionate about sustainability and positive social change as can be seen in their vision statement. Their economic engine is driven by the principle of sustainability which in their opinion is the only responsible way to expand a business nowadays with a fast-growing global population. One of their main strengths is the fact that they have a huge number of products, brands and consumers thus they have the power to influence a lot of people for the better.

The fundamentals of my new community building plan

1. Context: two principles of the Network Society that could affect Unilever’s success

One principle that has the potential to improve Unilever’s work is the technology principle. It states that the online community is mediated through new technological developments and especially the internet contributes enormously to creating a network society. As Unilever places value on engaging their consumers the network society will become even more important as a channel to their consumers. The fact that more and more people are active in a global network community on a daily basis offers Unilever the opportunity to reach out easily to a mass of people to inform their consumers, get them involved in a project or promote their products.

Another principle that could help Unilever become more successful is the choice principle. It claims that any member of the network society has the ability to choose whether to participate or leave. Nevertheless, they can still be affected by it. It also relates to the rising number of daily decisions people have to make.
This shows that Unilever could influence their consumers in their daily real life through the communication channels of technology. So even if a consumer stops using Unilever’s social media platforms they could still be subconsciously influenced by them.

2. Consumer: Consumer for new community building plan

I want to focus on international innovative young global citizens that are interested in making the world a better place in terms of sustainability and positive social change. As that is Unilever’s passion I think it would make most sense to pick this target audience for a network society. It is kept very open in terms of demographics and socio-economic background. The most important criteria for the target audience are the desire to improve the world and generating creative ideas and concepts. The target group is primarily young (15-40 years old) to come up with innovative concepts .

3. Community: Online community’s behaviour

4. Connection: new value preposition

The new value proposition I would recommend Unilever to use is gender equality. They have the means to achieve great progress in this field and moreover have the reputation of a credible organisation thus their efforts would probably be appreciated by their consumers. It would improve their image of a modern organisation that does everything possible to improve the livelihoods of their consumers. They could expand their current Dove Real Beauty campaign or start a new employee program with a focus on equal pay for the same work. Furthermore, they could combine their campaigns supporting children with educational programs and opportunities establishing gender equality. The new context (technology and choice principle) would make it easier for Unilever to introduce the new value proposition because the online channels allow them to reach most of their consumers and see how they react to it. The consumer type I chose to focus on will most likely accept gender equality as a new value proposition as the generation is relatively tolerant and open for positive change.