Unilever – Beauty & Wellbeing

The objective

Using TikTok to reach new generations of skincare enthusiasts

Today’s skincare enthusiasts are getting younger. Gen Zs got into skincare at an earlier age than any generation before them and are learning more about new products and skincare routines through platforms like TikTok. This is prompting brands and beauty companies to rethink their communication strategies and tap into TikTok to reach and better engage their target market.

Among the big names making this shift is Unilever, a multinational fast-moving consumer goods company. Its skincare products are widely used and have become beauty staples for people all across the globe, including skincare enthusiasts in the Philippines.

To cater to new generations of Filipino beauty enthusiasts, Unilever has taken to advertising and selling their products on TikTok. They used TikTok’s Shopping Ads Solutions—specifically its Video Shopping Ads—to drive more purchases and engagements on TikTok Shop.

The solution

Leveraging TikTok Video Shopping Ads for a seamless in-app shopping experience

Using TikTok’s Video Shopping Ads, Unilever tapped several key opinion leaders to create TikTok videos where they show a before-and-after comparison using a Unilever product. Video Shopping Ads make TikTok in-feed video ads shoppable, so when TikTok users view a Video Shopping Ad, all they have to do is tap the product anchor link or card on the video, and they’ll be redirected to the brand’s TikTok Shop. This offers a seamless watching and shopping experience on the platform.

For this campaign, Unilever used a mix of brand and creator assets catered to TikTok users aged 18 to 55. This campaign ran for about a month on the platform, from August 17 to September 16, 2023.

Unilever also conducted a Conversion Lift Study to measure how effective their campaign was. TikTok’s Conversion Lift Studies create two randomized groups from the target audience of a brand’s specific campaign—an exposed group is composed of respondents who will see the brand’s advertisement, while a control group is composed of respondents who will not.

TikTok will then compare conversion behavior across the two groups to determine if the advertisement caused a desired outcome. In this case, Unilever wanted to check if their campaign led to more purchases and initiate checkout engagements across their products on TikTok Shop that would not have happened if it weren’t for their advertisement.

The results

Purposeful advertising to the right audiences leads to success

The results of the Conversion Lift Study found that Unilever's campaign, using a variety of Video Shopping Ads, succeeded in driving more purchases and engagements on their TikTok Shop. There was a 20% relative lift in initiate checkout engagements which translated into a 17% relative lift in purchases of Unilever's products on TikTok Shop.

Beauty brands such as Unilever can use TikTok’s Ad Manager to launch campaigns on the platform and track their performance using relevant metrics.