Unilever on track with 50% social-spend shift as creators become core media channel

Unilever shocked industry insiders in March when it committed to pushing 50% of its global media spend into social platforms, a dramatic leap from the roughly 30% it was investing previously. Nine months later, agency leaders and performance indicators suggest it has largely delivered on that pledge, though the year-end data will reveal whether the gamble is paying off.

Unilever chief executive Fernando Fernandez has been the driving force behind the shift, framing social and creator-led content as the company’s most effective route to trust, relevance and growth. The step-change came in March as he took the helm from Hein Schumacher, who departed after less than two years in the top job.

Fernandez’s “Desire at Scale” strategy centres on the belief that consumers trust creators far more than traditional corporate messaging and that social platforms, not TV or print, are now the most effective way to drive both culture and commerce.

Agency leaders say the effects of that shift are already visible across Unilever’s global marketing teams. Betsy Lemaire, chief executive of CEG Agency, told The Daily Influence that Unilever’s commitments line up with what she is seeing across the broader industry.

“Even if specific line items don’t show a clean ‘50% social media allocation,’ the reality is that creator-led, social native content is influencing the majority of decisions across paid media, creator licensing, retail media, and even PR,” she said. “Unilever signaled where the industry was heading; most major players have been forced to follow.”

Much of Unilever’s momentum sits in sectors where creators already shape consumer decisions. Specifically, beauty and personal care, skincare, functional wellness and homecare, where audiences routinely turn to creators for tutorials, routines and honest reviews – the types of content that feel more trustworthy than polished ads.

Lemaire said these categories are adapting fastest. “Beauty & personal care creators are now the frontline of product education and trust,” she said. “Health & wellness, particularly functional supplements and skincare, where creator content outperforms traditional brand creative. Homecare has also picked up, driven by TikTok’s ‘cleaning, organizing, routines’ sub-culture that’s become a new form of lifestyle entertainment.”

TikTok Shop has become a key engine for this approach, giving Unilever a way to test products, bundles and messaging almost instantly. In a company article in November, Jessica Bee, E-Commerce Lead at Unilever UK, said the platform allows the brand to operate far more experimentally than traditional retail channels.

“TikTok Shop gives us the freedom to test and learn – trialling new formats, bundles and content to see what resonates,” she wrote. “It’s a space where we can be agile and show up like a challenger brand… experiment at pace, learn fast, and scale what works.”

Early indicators point to high-volume output. In the same publication, Emily Waite, Senior Commerce Lead for Homecare, said Cif had collaborated with 650 creators to generate more than 1,000 pieces of content for a major launch, reaching nearly 2 million views. The Molly Mae Pure Heaven Scent bundle has achieved more than 14 million total video views.

Lemaire said the role of each platform within Unilever’s model is becoming clearer. Meta remains the most efficient for conversions, TikTok drives discovery and rapid sales spikes, and YouTube Shorts is emerging as a “dark horse” engine for evergreen reach.

But the biggest creative shift, she said, is how brands are redefining what creators are for.

“The era of ‘influencer posts’ is over and what’s working now is creator-powered performance ecosystems, where social content drives acquisition, retention, and retail velocity all at once,” she said. “We call this Partnership Advertising”.

Whether Unilever’s bold social-first reset ultimately delivers the commercial gains it hopes for will become clearer once year-end figures drop. For now, the company’s move under Fernandez has forced the wider industry to confront a new reality: creators are now at the centre of the media plan.