The project seeks to create a single team of officials currently working on various brands and media, including creative, digital, social media and media buying.
The foundry focuses on marketing and ad tech, products and ingredients, new business model innovation and social impact, besides providing opportunities to develop and work on global projects.
NEW DELHI: The country’s biggest advertiser, Hindustan Unilever, and WPP may replicate a collaborative formula they have perfected in Singapore, harnessing talent from different agencies of the global creative giant to create a combined on-site platform for India’s largest consumer goods company.
The project seeks to create a single team of officials currently working on various brands and media, including creative, digital, social media and media buying. With an annual budget in excess of Rs 3,000 crore, HUL works with multiple agencies under the WPP umbrella, including JWT, Ogilvy and Young & Rubicam.
A spokesperson for HUL, which makes Pepsodent toothpaste, Dove soap and Axe deodorants, said in an email: “We have a great relationship with WPP globally and in India, and we constantly look at better and newer ways of serving our consumers. There is merit in collaborative ways of working, which cuts across verticals but it is premature to comment on any changes in India.”
In Singapore, the unified team now sits together under one roof in a coworking space, and works jointly on over 400 brands of Unilever to derive seamless services.
“We have a great partnership with HUL in India and look forward to strengthening it in the years to come,” CVL Srinivas, country manager, WPP India, said in an email.
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Unilever VP of media for Asia, Africa & Russia, David Porter, said in a statement on Thursday: “We are looking at a number of ways to bring external marketing services closer to our colleagues inside Unilever. We work more frequently in fluid, multifunctional teams, so it makes sense to bring our key partners physically closer to us and to explore different in-sourcing models.”
Porter further said that with WPP, the company is taking a “major step towards in-housing key external services at Unilever.”
“The unique environment puts our agency partners much closer to our brands, closer to our data, ecommerce and internal creative resources, and also closer to the digital startups which are transforming our world,”
Porter added in the statement. The Singapore model accesses technology and new products through its startup community, Unilever Foundry, a global platform for partnering with startups to accelerate innovation on a global scale.
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The foundry focuses on marketing and ad tech, products and ingredients, new business model innovation and social impact, besides providing opportunities to develop and work on global projects.
