Back in early 2021, Unilever’s 108-year old mayonnaise brand Hellmann’s pitched a new product positioning during the Superbowl.
The brand’s agency Wunderman Thompson explained the positioning in its website: “An iconic brand that has been sitting in the back of your fridge collecting dust; it’s not just for your sandwich any more… introducing Hellmann’s brand purpose to American households – Making Taste, Not Waste”!
The campaign started with a teaser where Amy Schumer, in a surreal shot, walked into a fridge that was stocked with Hellmann’s.
The subsequent Superbowl spots showcased Amy as ‘Fairy Godmayo’ who makes people see that their fridge is filled with food and yet you feel as if there’s nothing to eat. The idea was to position the mayo as being appropriate/useful for things beyond what it is already known for (salads and sandwiches).
Wunderman Thompson also showcased the campaign’s success on its website:
240 million impressions earned on social media in the 2.5 weeks span
72% recalled the brand message
43x average daily brand mentions
The campaign’s Canadian version was unveiled in March and April 2021 and saw 1,000 households being studied to understand food wastage patterns. The result was the creation of ‘Use-up days’ where people are encouraged to prepare a meal out of existing food in the fridge and the kitchen once every week.
The same campaign’s UK version was ‘Cook clever. Waste less’ and was handled by another agency, Mindshare, launched in May 2021. The agency roped in UK’s Channel 4 to create a branded entertainment show titled ‘Cook Clever, Waste Less with Prue & Rupy’, hosted by a well-known British cook, Prue Leith, and social media food and health expert Dr. Rupy Aujla.
Cut to January 2022.
Terry Smith, CEO of Fundsmith LLP, the 10th largest shareholder at Unilever, wrote this in his annual letter to investors:
“Unilever seems to be labouring under the weight of a management which is obsessed with publicly displaying sustainability credentials at the expense of focusing on the fundamentals of the business. The most obvious manifestation of this is the public spat it has become embroiled in over the refusal to supply Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in the West Bank. However, we think there are far more ludicrous examples which illustrate the problem. A company which feels it has to define the purpose of Hellmann’s mayonnaise has in our view clearly lost the plot. The Hellmann’s brand has existed since 1913 so we would guess that by now consumers have figured out its purpose (spoiler alert — salads and sandwiches). Although Unilever had by far the worst performance of our consumer staples stocks during the pandemic we continue to hold the shares because we think that its strong brands and distribution will triumph in the end.“
This is highly unusual for three reasons.
One, it is generally rare for an investor to criticize a company’s focus on ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) standards.
Two, this is not the first time that Hellmann’s is focusing on food wastage as the brand’s purpose.
For instance, the 2012 campaign by Ogilvy Brazil, called ‘Recipe Receipt’ was incredibly clever in the way the same message of Hellmann’s versatility beyond salads/sandwiches was conveyed. With custom software installed in many departmental stores checkout machines in Brazil, whenever the bill included Hellmann’s mayo, the bill (receipt) included a recipe that used Hellmann’s and other items from the same order suggesting interesting dishes!
The brand’s 2018 campaign used the insight that Canadians waste enough food every minute to feed a stadium! So, Hellmann’s literally fed an entire stadium with leftover food that would have otherwise been thrown away, by using Hellmann’s mayo to improvise, of course.
In 2019, a campaign called ‘The restaurant with no food’ had pop-up restaurants created in many countries (Brazil, UK, Czech Republic, among others) where there was no food, people were asked to bring leftovers from their fridge, and celeb chefs prepared exquisite meals out of them!
Three, in almost all these cases, sales of Hellmann’s grew. In fact, after the 2021 Superbowl campaign, Unilever announced double-digit growth of Hellmann’s mayo for the first quarter!
Most reports point to increased sales and interest for condiments like mayonnaise on the back of a significant rise in home cooking owing to the pandemic.
According to Unilever’s own internal research in 54 of the 75 markets where it tracks staff engagement, 72% of people said sustainability was the main reason they joined the business. And another report by Kantar says that Unilever’s sustainable brands are growing 2x faster than other brands.
Fundsmith’s broadside against Unilever where it isolates a specific brand like Hellmann’s to shower it with a word like ‘ludicrous’, hence, seems oddly personal and misdirected! The brand’s investment into its purpose (avoid food waste) has been in existence for a long time (consistency of purpose in terms of commitment) and has been helping the brand expand the use of mayo beyond mere bread in a fairly convincing, and meaningful, manner.
Yes, ‘brand purpose’ is mocked these days on the back of many hollow and pointless ‘purpose’ definitions (like WeWork’s famous purpose outlined in its IPO prospectus went, “to elevate the world’s consciousness”).
But whether a purpose is laughably silly or serious is ideally identified by how much weight the company is putting behind it and if it is actually working in terms of sales/financials. Hellmann’s purpose seems to be a perfect intersection of two objectives – expand the use-case of mayonnaise and situate that expansion on the environment. And it seems to be working on both fronts – sales are up, and this purpose has been used for over a decade in many interesting and successful variations in many countries that all point to the same goal – expand the use of mayo beyond the conventional.