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2023 One Show - Direct Marketing

Smart Fill

Agency VMLY&R Commerce India / Mumbai

Client Unilever

Category

Out of Home / P.O.P. & In-Store

Annual ID

OS23_DM062M

About the Work

Packaging is the face of a brand. But in India, it’s also the face of plastic pollution. We sacrificed our most valuable branding asset – the packaging. We introduced Smart Fill, an in-store experience that lets shoppers use other brands’ plastic waste as Unilever packaging. People switched to an innovative sustainable packaging alternative, even if they didn’t care about the environment. Shoppers use any container to Smart Fill products like Vim, Surf Excel and Comfort. This solution leverages the Indian cultural practice of repurposing, to induce trials and help shoppers to save money.

The future will only be plastic alternatives. Unilever had to future-proof its business by rethinking what the next packaging innovation should be. We had to re-examine the fundamentals and drive conversion through mass adoption of a new sustainable package solution. But the challenge was; How do we convince shoppers to shift to a sustainable alternative if they don’t care about the environment?

Convincing consumers to adopt a new sustainable alternative is a challenge. Research revealed that it wasn’t the Eco Warriors and Convenience Seekers we needed to target, it was the Value Seekers and Value Chasers, comprising 50% Indians. We introduced Smart Fill, an in-store experience that lets shoppers use other brands’ plastic waste as Unilever packaging. It changed Indian shopper behaviour.

Taking responsibility for its business’ impact on the environment, Unilever has pledged to remove more than 100,000 tonnes of plastic entirely, by 2025. The future will only be plastic alternatives. With its products reaching 9 out of 10 Indian households, Unilever had to future-proof its business by rethinking what the next packaging innovation should be.

Smart Fill stations have been placed in supermarkets and hypermarkets at 50 locations across India.

Our solution harnessed 2 cultural nuances; 1. Thrift: People carry bags to supermarkets to avoid bag charges. It’s not that they cannot afford 7¢ carry bag on a $70 bill, they dislike wastefulness. 2. Repurposing used packaging (e.g. cookie tins as sewing kits, soda bottles as spray bottles). Our strategy was to tap this resourcefulness to fit into their journey, without sacrificing time/effort.

2023 Awards

Total Points: 3

Merit

Credits

Agency

VMLY&R Commerce India / Mumbai

Chief Creative Officer

Debbi Vandeven

Associate Creative Director

Sebastian Cuevas

Global Chief Creative Officer

Manuel Borde

Senior Copywriter

Ingrid Dsouza

Senior Creative Director

Meenal Brahmane

Associate Group Head

Divya Malvankar

Associate Vice President

Siddharth Agarwal

Global Creative Coordinator

David Cofrancesco
Philip Nash

Motion & Graphic Designer

Dariel Bogota
Jonhatan Bolivar
Lucas Pimenta

National Creative Director

Arpan Jain

Shinde

Shankar Shinde

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