Unileverage

Giant umbrella company, and all round enormous conglomerate Unilever is to start putting its logo in adverts for its products, which until now have lived completely separate  lives.  http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/884449/Unilever-debut-logo-consumer-ads-March/989BD06090ABCD5E84FC9234B1061C03/

I have blogged previously about Unilever and a disparity in its communications from its sub-brands. See the post "Unilever Hypocrisy" to read about how one savvy consumer connected the line between Dove - real beauty - and Lynx - real sexy ladies gyrating for you with a single spray of deodorant. 

This previous incident wasn't really an incident at all, because although Dove and Lynx are owned by the same parent company they are completely separate brands, run by completely different chains of command and with the Unilever logo appearing only on the packaging, there was really no Unilever brand to speak of, nor to be damaged. To 99% of the public, the Unilever logo was (and still is) something of a mystery. It's something that appears on the back of a lot of their products but it has no real meaning.

Now, adding it to television advertising (presumably to be followed by print, outdoor and in-store media) will start to create a brand. Unilever will start to represent something, and the previously innocuous logo that hid shyly at the back of the pack will be standing proudly forward with something to say. 

Unilever's reasoning is that their research shows that if a consumer already buys products from them, they are more likely to buy another product if they know it is by the same company. What I think they've neglected to think about is that while people who regularly buy Uncle Ben's rice may be more open to buying Uncle Ben's sauces, the same logic doesn't necessarily apply one tier higher up in the branding hierarchy.

• Is a lover of Skittles more likely to buy Sheeba for his cat if he knows they're both owned by Masterfoods?

• Is a guy who always shaves with Gillette going to be more open to buying Ariel detergent if he knows they're both owned by Procter and Gamble?
  

The answer, surely, is a resounding no. So why do Unilever think that slapping a logo in their adverts is going to increase brand loyalty and turn Dove users into PG Tips drinkers (incidentally, I think Procter and Gamble should buy the PG Tips brand and rebrand them P&G Tips).

All they're going to do is open themselves up to a level of transparency that they aren't used to, and they'll open the doors for a thousand more connections being made between their brands that aren't so friendly. 

• Got a laundry brand talking about environmental friendliness, but also own a battery company doing nothing to prevent millions of disposable batteries being sent to landfill each year?

• Own the leading ice cream brand AND the leading diet food brand? 

• Do you have one brand telling women they're beautiful as they are and another telling them to slap more make-up on?

You bet your arse the big 3 companies do, which is exactly why they ought to keep their mouths shut if they don't want to unleash the wrath of the savvy shopper. Just to pick one example of terrible crossovers in the brand portfolio - how exactly does Unilever think it's going to look when people make connections between Pot Noodle and Weight Watchers. On the one hand you have "the slag of all snacks" and on the other you've got "who ate all the snacks?".

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I think in the age of the internet and the savvy shopper, with power more firmly in the hands of consumers than ever before, Unilever may be opening up a huge can of worms and causing itself far more trouble than it's worth. Now is not the time to connect all your brands that have vastly different messages, and it certainly isn't a time to bring the messages of your brands closer together to fit snugly under one corporate umbrella. 

Now is the time to strengthen the brands you already have, to make them stand more firmly for what they stand for than ever before. Denigrating their strength by highlighting an overarching hypocrisy and lack of consistency seems like a very bad idea indeed.