Inside Unilever Thailand’s great idea to boost fabric softener sales

Execution

Unilever’s strategy involved running a programmatic campaign on The Trade Desk’s demand-side platform, drawing on the platform’s selection of premium programmatic digital out-of-home (pDOOH) and display inventory.

The company used various targeting strategies to reach the right audience. A key strategy involved partnering with media intelligence specialist Meltwater to identify high-performing keywords from across Thailand’s social media ecosystem through social listening. Keyword categories included “outdoor,” “convenience,” “beauty,” and “competitor.”

Using these keywords, Unilever used The Trade Desk’s custom audience solution to create a segment of consumers who had engaged with media related to them across the open internet. The company then used this audience to target potential customers via pDOOH placements across Bangkok.

Other targeting strategies included using The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) solution to turn its Homecare customer relationship management (CRM) data into privacy-friendly UID2 identifiers and create a lookalike audience of consumers similar to its existing customers. Unilever also targeted vehicle owners who spend a fair amount of time on the road through The Trade Desk, and used temperature targeting to show ads on screens when the temperature is above 30 degrees where consumers are more likely to need UV protection.

Users exposed to the company’s pDOOH ads were retargeted via display, helping to re-engage potential buyers and move them further along the path to considering and trying 'Comfort Beauty UV Fabric Softener.' Adopting this approach enabled Unilever to harness the mass reach and brand impact of outdoor media and the precision targeting of digital. The company re-engaged with the targeted keywords from Meltwater to tap into audiences who had already expressed interest in Unilever’s product.

To measure the campaign's impact, Unilever activated the Lifesight footfall measurement solution on The Trade Desk platform. This enabled the company to match Lifesight’s visitation data for 6,198 Lotus’s and 7 Eleven stores nationally with campaign data and make in-flight optimizations to drive more traffic to stores. Meanwhile, brand lift measurement company Happydemics conducted a brand lift survey to evaluate how the campaign impacted top-of-funnel brand metrics like ad recall and interest.

Results

By using social listening to identify and engage with potential customers beyond social media, Unilever ensured its campaign delivered measurable business outcomes for 'Comfort Beauty UV Fabric Softener.' The results included a:

• 24% overall brand lift, compared to the industry benchmark
• 31% lift in ad recall, demonstrating the effectiveness of exposing consumers to ads across multiple formats
• 16% lift in interest, which showed that the campaign’s ads effectively captured users’ attention and curiosity.

Using custom audiences based on Meltwater’s social keywords to target the right people also resulted in:

• 4x incremental footfall, compared to using a non-custom audience
• 88% lower cost per visit, compared to using a non-custom audience.

These results proved that using custom audiences drives lower-funnel key performance indicators.

Significantly, the campaign delivered a 14.6% lift in total brand sales, demonstrating its effectiveness in driving not only the new product’s performance but also growth across Comfort’s entire portfolio due to a “halo effect.”

Campaign metrics also demonstrated that using pDOOH and display retargeting in tandem is highly effective for driving footfall conversions. Targeting consumers with pDOOH achieved a 42% shorter conversion time compared to the campaign average, while display retargeting accounted for 75% of the campaign’s overall footfall conversions.

'Comfort’s' campaign was a resounding success, highlighting the value of strategic partnerships with The Trade Desk, Meltwater, Lifesight, and Happydemics for turning consumer insights into impactful media activations. By working with expert partners, the brand effectively turned social listening signals into a targeted audience strategy that extended beyond social platforms. The integration of pDOOH and display retargeting created a seamless, omnichannel experience that reinforced key messages and drove real-world engagement.

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