Unilever's strategic investment in Retail Media campaign

The pharmacy channel is gaining strength in the digital retail of beauty and personal care, paving the way for the development of a relatively recent approach in this market, Retail Media. To navigate this environment, which has a captive audience and higher average ticket, Unilever partnered with Panvel for a digital action featuring the Dove brand focused on the South Region and some neighborhoods of São Paulo capital. Cadastra, in addition to bringing the parties together, carried out the strategy and operation of the campaign focusing on digital environments.

The action, held in August, aimed to improve the sales performance of Dove soap and its kits on Panvel's e-commerce, as well as to reinforce the brand's awareness in this channel. Sales of Dove on Panvel's e-commerce grew by 64% during the period, with a conversion rate reaching 4.26%, a record.

"This initiative well embodies our proposal to offer multidisciplinary solutions that provide sales results, but also medium- and long-term positioning. By maximizing the potential of digital channels with respect to consumer data, we help Panvel develop an extra source of revenue and Unilever to relate to its consumers at a time when they are more prone to consumption, opening up new frontiers of results," says Nathália Dalla Corte, vice president and partner of Cadastra.

For Tiago Henrique Souto, Executive E-commerce Manager at Panvel, "The retail media strategy with Unilever worked very well because we unified the business strategy, looking at the brand's objective and alignment with the target audience. We identified what this audience needed, at which moment they were looking for a product for their consumption journey and, based on that, we developed the best campaign, media, and CRM strategy."

"The role of Retail Media has been extremely important not only for accelerating sellout in retailers, but has also proven effective in brand building. That said, the partnership with Panvel was really very assertive and effective, since our products are a great match with the pharmacy category," said Liana Bonifacio, Retail Media Coordinator at Unilever.

"The integration between the Business, Strategy, and Digital Media areas enhances the execution of Retail Media plans, enabling the achievement of surprising results, as achieved by this action. At Unilever, we are constantly improving our collaboration model between industry, retail, and agencies, and we have full confidence in our ability to make our future results exponential," says Marcos Alves, Business Leader at Unilever.

The campaign was developed in line with consumer browsing behavior on Panvel's e-commerce (anonymously) and was also synchronized with other on and offline advertising insertions.

"In this way, we worked on the entire purchasing journey, from consideration to the final click on Panvel's website or app. As a result, we achieved greater efficiency in investments and a smoother experience for the consumer. The pharmacy channel, whether online or physical, offers convenience, variety, and conditions that attract consumers of beauty and personal care," explains the vice president of Cadastra.

The Panvel manager emphasizes that "The success of the case was largely due to the unified strategy from top to bottom of the funnel. We covered from the awareness layer, the consideration and conversion layer, to user retention. And this was possible because we evaluated what was the best ad, the best product, category, and the time, the correct timing to be running these ads. All in accordance with what the consumer likes, their preferred purchase. The strategy of advertising products on Panvel's digital platforms, using Retail Media and consumer navigation information, was extremely important for this assertiveness in this action."

Unilever plans to expand this format to other products and categories of its beauty line, and Panvel is setting up its own ads platform for its e-commerce.

"As pointed out by a study we recently released, Retail Media is the third wave of advertising and has been gaining ground in pharmacies, but also in various markets such as medium and large e-commerce, supermarkets, and others, in addition to marketplaces that have also been investing heavily in this area. According to eMarketer, sales through Retail Media are expected to grow globally by more than 10% in 2023, while in Brazil this rate is expected to be even higher, reaching 17%," concludes Nathália Dalla Corte.

Content originally published on TI Inside.