Meeting consumer needs
In the last five years, we have built our business by focusing on our brands, streamlining how we work, and improving our insight into the evolving needs and tastes of consumers. Now we are taking the next step in simplification - by aligning ourselves around a clear common mission.
We recognise that the world in which we operate is changing. Consumers are increasingly bringing their views as citizens into their buying decisions, demanding more from the companies behind the brands. They want companies and brands they trust.
Unilever embraces these new expectations. Our heritage of good governance, product quality and long experience of working with communities gives us a strong base. We aim to build on this by taking the next step in transparency and accountability. We will stand visibly as Unilever, behind our products and everything we do, everywhere.
Brand benefits
Every day 150 million people in over 150 countries choose our products. Already, most of our brands give the benefits of feeling good, looking good and getting more out of life. Bertolli, for example, conjures up the Italian zest for life and Becel/Flora keeps hearts healthy. Sunsilk helps you feel happier because your hair looks great. Our laundry brand, Omo, encourages children to get dirty so they can experience more of life.
In the future, our brands will do even more to add vitality to life. Our vitality mission will focus our brands on meeting consumer needs arising from the biggest issues around the world today – ageing populations, urbanisation, changing diets and lifestyles.
We see growing consumer need for:
- a healthy lifestyle
- more variety, quality, taste and enjoyment
- time, as an increasingly precious commodity
Helping people to feel good, look good and get more out of life will enable us to meet these needs and expand our business.
Unilever is in a unique position to understand the interrelationships between nutrition, hygiene and personal care. We can do this thanks to our strong science capability and our locally rooted consumer insight. It is by bringing all this together that we can strive to contribute to quality of life and wellbeing - adding vitality to life.
We want to make sure our products add vitality to the lives of our consumers, whether through body, mind or spirit – which is why we have set up extensive programmes to assess formulate and develop them. Just one example is our Nutrition Enhancement Programme, which aims to optimise the nutritional content and health benefits of our entire food portfolio.
We are also open and transparent in the information we provide on our products, as well as all advertising and marketing material – and any claims we make are supported by scientific evidence. In other words, if we say our products will add vitality to life, we mean it.
The long-term success of our business is intimately interconnected with the vitality of the environment and the communities in which we operate. The environment provides us with our raw materials and the ingredients we need to make our products. Healthy, prosperous communities provide us with a healthy, growing consumer base.
To help make sure that our message of adding vitality to life is heard by everyone, everywhere, we have formed beneficial partnerships with organisations the world over, including both global bodies such as the World Heart Federation and at a local level. Through these relationships, we are helping to improve the health and wellbeing of people in both developed and developing nations, and ensure they all get the chance to add vitality to their lives.
