Unilever has developed and is piloting a new marketing programme which rewards people for viewing sustainability-focused adverts.
According to reporting in The Drum, the scheme includes ads that appear on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube, allowing viewers to receive a coupon after watching the fifteen-second videos. The coupons can then be used to contribute to a worthy cause like a food waste project.
The brands that Unilever has featured in the pilot include Hellman’s, Magnum and Comfort.
In March Unilever published a study which showed that social media ranks as “one of the most influential” sources of sustainability for the customer. It found that three in four people are more likely to take up behaviours that are more environmentally conscious after watching adverts that mention the issue.
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“Our approach at Unilever covers activities within our operations, our value chain, our brands as well as our work to influence wider society,” said Unilever chief digital and commercial officer Conny Braams in a LinkedIn post commenting on debate at the Global Marketer Week conference which took place in Istanbul last week.
“We’ve been exploring the intersection of marketing, technology and sustainability to understand what motivates people to make sustainable choices,” she continued.
“People are finding it hard to make sustainable choices due to a lack of simple, immediate and trustworthy information. Our ambition is to continue to collaborate with our partners to improve the sustainability content produced by our brands and support the creatives we work with.”
The multinational has previously come under fire for greenwashing, after an advert from one of its brands Persil was banned by the ASA for making misleading environmental claims.
