<\/p>\n
Unilever has been doubling down on its sports marketing\u2014or should we say tripling down.<\/p>\n
The CPG giant, which owns brands like Dove, Hellmann\u2019s, Axe, Ben and Jerry\u2019s, Tressemm\u00e9, and Vaseline, has increased its sports media spend threefold since 2020, when sports sponsorships took a dip in the early days of the pandemic. In more recent years, sponsorship revenue has bounced back, and many brands have reported seeing returns on their investments in sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt works really well for our brands,\u201d Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA, told Marketing Brew. \u201cIt allows us to get to audiences and cohorts that really resonate with us, and it also allows us to deliver some of the purpose work on brands like Dove and Hellmann\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both brands advertised in this year\u2019s Super Bowl, with Hellmann\u2019s returning for the fourth year with an ad tackling food waste, and Dove coming back for the first time in nearly 20 years with an ad about body confidence among young girls in sports. Dove will advertise again during the Super Bowl in 2025, Patel said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not the only major moment on Unilever\u2019s annual sports marketing calendar: March Madness is a big focus for the company\u2019s brands, along with soccer and college football later in the year.<\/p>\n
Unilever usually kicks its annual sports marketing calendar off with the Super Bowl, Patel said, and, unlike most years, two Unilever brands were involved this time around. Dove got back in the game specifically because the brand\u2019s marketing team decided on a purpose-driven campaign, Patel said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about not every brand doing sports for the sake of it,\u201d he said, adding that Unilever strives to create sports campaigns that \u201cmake material impact in society.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Dove Super Bowl campaign, created in partnership with Nike, hinged on a finding from a survey co-commissioned by Dove that 45% of girls drop out of sports by age 14 due to low body confidence, and there were several initiatives designed around changing that. That included a \u201cBody Confident Sport\u201d program for coaches and parents to help foster body confidence in girls, as well as the #KeepHerConfident challenge on TikTok, which encouraged users to \u201cshow what girls can do when they stay in sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additionally, Dove struck up a content partnership with women athlete-founded media and commerce company Togethxr, plus ambassadorships with Kylie Kelce, Venus Williams, and Steve Young.<\/p>\n
As part of the campaign, Williams and Young, a former NFL quarterback, coached teams in a flag football game for high school girls from Las Vegas\u2019s Clark County school district that Dove put on with nonprofit GenYouth. With flag football set to become an Olympic sport beginning with the Los Angeles 2028 games, Patel said he\u2019d like to see Unilever continue to lean into that sport, especially on the women\u2019s and girls\u2019 side.<\/p>\n
Dove wouldn\u2019t be headed back to the Super Bowl for a second year if there wasn\u2019t a strong business case to do so, Patel said. While he declined to share specific sales or growth numbers around this year\u2019s Dove and Hellmann\u2019s campaigns, he said both went over well in terms of engagement.<\/p>\n
After Super Bowl season, Patel and his team pivot to March Madness, and this year marked Unilever\u2019s 13th as part of the NCAA\u2019s official corporate partnership program, which puts its brands in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tournaments. Unilever served as halftime sponsor for women\u2019s March Madness, and it recently joined WPP media investment agency GroupM\u2019s commitment to double its annual advertising spend on women\u2019s sports across its clients.<\/p>\n
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just so much momentum behind women\u2019s sports right now,\u201d Patel said. It is especially resonant, he said, among Gen Z and millennials: \u201c[They\u2019re] saying they\u2019re watching more women\u2019s sports over the last 12 months, so for us, it\u2019s also a nice way of making the brand contemporary, at the heart of pop culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the summer, Unilever shifts to soccer. Last year, that meant sponsoring the FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup across personal care brands including Degree, Dove, Lifebuoy, and Lux, which \u201callows us to really own a global stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Unilever\u2019s deal with FIFA is set to continue through 2027, encompassing the 2024 Copa America tournament, the 2026 men\u2019s World Cup, and the 2027 women\u2019s World Cup. Unilever is also sponsoring the UEFA European Football Championship across multiple brands.<\/p>\n
In the fall, it\u2019s back to American football, specifically at the college level, Patel said. Degree was an early entrant to NIL as soon as it went into effect in 2021, and Hellmann\u2019s also has a presence in college football as the official mayonnaise of six top football universities in the south, including the University of Florida and Texas A&M, as of last fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt goes across the entire year,\u201d Patel said. \u201cWe like to say we are a sports marketing powerhouse because at some point, there is always something happening.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n