Unilever revitalizes Wall's ice cream brands in China

SHANGHAI--Unilever is revitalizing two of its Wall's ice cream brands, Magnum and Cornetto, with major campaigns for each product line launching across China on April 1. After almost a year of detailed planning, Unilever is relaunching Magnum, a high-end ice cream bar that is one of Unilever's big global brands, with a creamier, richer flavor in vanilla, chocolate biscuit and cappuccino flavors. As part of the overhaul, new packaging and marketing reflect its more premium image. Unilever also updated the image of Cornetto, a mass-market brand, with a music-themed campaign starring two Chinese pop singers, Singaporean J.J. Lin and Shanghai native Jin Sha. Getting the right products and branding into China was critical. With most of its urban, affluent population living in mild seaside climates, the country's ice cream season starts in March and lasts through late September. But historically, Chinese are not ice cream fans and sales among these consumers remains relatively low, three liters per year compared to about 22 liters in the U.S. On a national average, including poorer rural areas, the consumption of ice cream in China is extremely low. Competition from local dairy companies like China's Inner Mongolia Mengniu Milk Industry Co. and Inner Mongolia Yili Co. has also intensified in the past couple of years. Both Chinese companies have greatly improved the quality of their products, and in general, have better distribution, local market understanding and lower prices than multinationals. Unilever and other foreign ice cream marketers also have to overcome local taste preferences. During the hottest months of summer, Chinese often prefer water-based ice cream products like red bean sticks rather than dairy-based brands like Magnum and Cornetto. Global brands, local strategy New campaigns for both brands were created within Unilever's new operating framework, in which a global vision for all brands is rolled out from a single platform, rather than through a local filter, a past strategy that didn't work well. Those failures, combined with the company's decentralized structure and internal bickering, led to a fragmentation of brand values. The company hopes its turnaround strategy will help win back market share lost in China and other emerging markets to multinational rivals, both in household care products and food categories. The "obvious place for Wall's to start" was relaunching Magnum, the largest brand in that division's global portfolio, said Ian Maskell, Unilever's Shanghai-based managing director, North Asia for Walls brands. "In this era of global communication, we are very aware of the power of global brands and the efficiencies we can establish." Wrapped in new packaging that exudes a strong sense of indulgence, Unilever's new Magnum formula has already launched in Europe and Latin America, but Chinese retailers will be the first to stock it in Asia. ?It wasn't just a matter of freshening up ads to drive sales,? said Stephen Drummond, group managing director of Nitro Group, an independent agency which handles creative for Magnum and Cornetto in China. Creating new ads ?was a matter of catching up with the product. It's dramatically better. The chocolate taste is far more intense.?Blog strategy appeals to young consumers The campaign is running in TV, magazines and in-store merchandizing, but localizing the brand?s global strategy in China, one of the biggest internet and mobile phone markets in the world, mostly depends on digital media. Unilever has invested in a massive online competition that taps into the popularity of blogging in China. ?Blogging is a big phenomenon in China,? said Mr. Maskell. An ex-Mars marketer and veteran of China's confectionery market, he is part of a global Wall's team that rolls out the brand's worldwide strategy in local markets, working alongside Mike Zhang, Shanghai-based managing director for Wall's in China, who oversees the localization strategy. ?There are several reasons why, but mainly it's the way media has been controlled in China. Blogging provides an outlet that is reasonably free. Some bloggers have become quite well known in their own right and they were recruited to be judges on this project,? he added. The company is inviting consumers to create a blog on its Chinese Magnum micro-site or provide a link to an existing blog. Consumers can read and vote on which ones they like best, and read the evaluations of Unilever's celebrity blogger judges. For the voting, a standard online ?click? equals one vote but a code on the stick of each Magnum allows consumers to create five votes. ?We've linked the competition with the product, if you buy a Magnum, your voting power increases. It's quite an elaborate site,? said Mr. Maskell.

Unilever revitalizes Wall's ice cream brands in China

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