Unilever invests half of its budget on an ‘influencer-first’ strategy

The news: Unilever will spend half of its ad budget on social media and work with 20 times more influencers as part of its new “influencer-first” strategy, per CEO Fernando Fernandez. The move is one of Fernandez’s first major decisions since he replaced previous CEO Hein Schumacher earlier this month.

• Unilever’s investment in influencer marketing will rise from about 30% to 50% of the company’s total ad spend.
• Fernandez suggests that an influencer-first strategy will make Unilever more trustworthy to consumers who are skeptical of traditional corporate messaging.
• “There are 19,000 zip codes in India. There are 5,764 municipalities in Brazil. I want one influencer in each of them,” Fernandez said.

Zooming out: The move is part of a broader trend of companies investing in sponsored content on social media.

• US marketers are expected to spend over $10 billion in influencer-sponsored content in 2025, with 86% of marketers using influencer marketing, per our updated forecast.
• Unilever isn’t only trying to tap into current trends—it’s also making this change in hopes of speeding up its market growth, which fell short in 2024. While sales rose 4% YoY in Q4, it was short of the anticipated 4.1% gain. Full-year underlying sales increased 4.2%, shy of the expected 4.3%.

Investing heavily in influencer marketing—which remains a popular way of reaching targeted audiences and generating higher engagement—will ideally help Unilever sustain growth.

Yes, but: The larger Unilever’s influencer spending gets, the harder it will become to maintain control and monitor outcomes.

• The influencer market “has been around for a while but is still immature in terms of measurement,” and Unilever’s shift “will require extensive management and expertise,” Jane Ostler of Kantar told The Drum.
• Brands typically have “little control over influencers’ output,” per Ostler. This might be okay for companies working with a select few influencers, but the volume Unilever plans on partnering with will make it virtually impossible to ensure each one aligns with what the company expects. Endorsements that are seen as inappropriate can damage consumers’ relationship with influencers, thereby harming how consumers view the brands these influencers represent.

Our take: Fleshing out its influencer marketing strategy could pay off, but will require Unilever to understand the creators it partners with, their audiences, and how to get the most out of them—something that will be difficult if the company wants to work with a massive pool of creators.

Tracking how each influencer represents Unilever’s broad portfolio of brands is a big task, and investing so heavily in one marketing strategy without diversifying other approaches is risky, even for established companies like Unilever.