The One Show
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Category
Customer Experience / CX / In-Person
Annual ID
OS23_EX026B
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: 9
Bronze Pencil
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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