Unilever has appointed SAMY, the global social-first agency, to fully develop and activate a global influencer strategy for its Foods business group as it embeds its “many to many” brand-building vision across 13 markets.
Unilever’s social-first approach is rooted in social platforms, powered by creators, accelerated by AI and designed to participate in culture in real time. It sits alongside competitive brand marketing investment, with a decisive pivot toward digital-native channels.
SAMY’s tech-driven, intelligence-fuelled insights will sit at the heart of the strategy. The agency will deploy its proprietary Maia platform, providing Unilever Foods with access to more than 120 million influencers worldwide, and the performance data to ensure they deliver.
A dynamic, agile, ‘glocal’ multi-market SAMY team will deliver hyper-local intelligence and cultural insight to inform where and with whom Unilever brands should show up, while keeping content culturally relevant in each market, including the United States, the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, Germany, France, Poland, Pakistan, Argentina, Canada and Turkey.
SAMY will also develop the systems needed for creators and partners to represent Unilever brands consistently, including deployment frameworks and measurement models to track and grow meaningful connections with audiences across Hellmann’s and Knorr.
Sonsoles Piñeiro Kruik, Chief Growth Officer at SAMY, commented: “Being appointed to support the global pilot of Unilever’s social-first approach within its Foods division is a major milestone for both teams. Being chosen to enable this transformation within Foods is a major endorsement of SAMY’s influencer marketing expertise within the social universe.
“Taking on Unilever’s ambition to deliver a strategy that can be translated across 13 markets, within an organisation operating at that scale, is a complex challenge.
“With teams working across continents, we’ll bring hyper-local intelligence into a shared global system, enabling Unilever to orchestrate influencer activity at scale while ensuring creator partnerships are shaped by the realities of each local market, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.”
Meg Bass, Global Media Manager at Unilever’s Foods, added: “At Unilever, it’s about going where the consumers are and building Desire at Scale — growing our brands by embedding them authentically in culture. This means leaning strongly into creators who can help our stories travel further, feel more authentic and resonate more deeply.
“Working with SAMY will allow us to combine technology and data with deep knowledge of the whole social ecosystem, leading to more informed decisions around where and how we activate creator partnerships across markets.
“This will give our markets a clearer structure for working with creators, while still allowing them to respond to local behaviours, tastes and cultural context in a way that feels credible.”
