Social Media Campaign Review: Unilever’s Project Sunlight Has a Benevolent Core but Lacks The Buzz

On the occasion of Universal Children's Day, Unilever introduced its consumers to Project Sunlight, a new initiative to motivate people to live sustainably.

Objectives

Unilever believes it is possible for everyone in the world to live well and live sustainably. Project Sunlight is perhaps another step in this direction. The core message of sustainable living and the campaigns of many leading Unilever brands thus come into one single, global movement.

Execution

Unilever has invited people everywhere to watch their film and join Project Sunlight at www.projectsunlight.co.in.

The high impact factor attached to this campaign was to mark the launch on Universal Children’s Day, where Unilever’s target was to help 2 million children through their ongoing partnerships with Save The Children, UNICEF, and World Food Programme.

Positives

The campaign is simple as far as jumping on board and spreading the word go. The core message is one that all of us are concerned about, and deals with sustainable living practices today and working on the wellbeing of our children. This makes it easy for anyone to identify with the message of this campaign.

The film features couples from all over the world expressing their concerns revolving around “Why bring a child in to this world,” thus making the campaign global in its reach and appeal.

The campaign urges everyone to find out more about Project Sunlight, and to know more about how you can get involved, follow this link and take an act of sunlight today! http://projectsunlight.co.in/

It encourages consumers to engage through a dedicated site, in addition to digital and social media channels, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, with the hashtag #brightfuture. With over 3,948,814 views as I write this, it has certainly made people sit up and take notice. Nearly 2.5 million Facebook users “like” Unilever’s just-launched Project Sunlight campaign.

Unilever, as a parent company, got its subsidiary brands on board to promote it on Social Media like Surf Excel, Lifebuoy Soap and Kissan.

They have also used the Twitter hashtag in their offline initiatives - integration.

Our employees and their kids during the launch of Project Sunlight #brightfuture http://t.co/H5WpeHvKdS pic.twitter.com/AqlTJ9b7SH

— Careers at HUL (@HULcareers) November 25, 2013

Scope for Improvement

Though the core message is of the larger good, one wonders if manipulating emotions and human vulnerabilities to promote “a better world” is what this is really about. The campaign may be sweet and touching, but it misses out on building the “viral” aspect.

Also, there is a lack of proper closing to the loop.

Conclusion

All in all, Project Sunlight is an embodiment of Unilever’s core brand message “improving the quality of life through sustainable living practices.” However, it lacks the “buzz” element and “social” edge in terms of a digital campaign.