Women focus of Unilevers engagement initiative

Unilever is planning to encourage more women to engage with its portfolio of brands, which include Dove and Persil, through an incentive-driven “co-creation” site that launches this week.

The site, Mindbubble.co.uk, is aimed at women aged 25 to 50 years old, and has been designed by social media agency Face to encourage the target audience to give their views on products and input ideas about the marketing of brands through a number of methods, including online focus groups.

The site attempts to engage with women on a constructive “creative” level rather than providing a platform for “having a rant about a product” by offering payment ranging from £35 for contributing to a focus group to £150 for attending a day workshop.

Face has co-created pilot-testing programmes for brands such as Unilever’s Surf and Comfort, GlaxoSmithKline’s Aquafresh and Boots. The tests found that more women participate in brand research carried out online, as they can do so at a time that suits them.

Unilever global consumer market insight director of Surf and Skip, Anna Madeiros, says: “The development of Mindbubble will help us to creatively and rapidly evolve a new product offering, all the while engaging with and reinforcing our commitment to our target market – women.”

Increasing numbers of brands, from Nokia to BP, are using digital means to create ongoing relationships with target consumers.

Community sites targeted at women were one of the early web success stories, with iVillage, now owned by NBC-Universal, and Hearst’s Handbag close to celebrating their first decade as mass market popular sites.

Since then brands such as Mothercare and Nestlé have sought to create their own community sites such as Gurgle.com.