Unilever Optimizes Product Shoots With Digital Twins & AI; Sells The Vegetarian Butcher

Unilever is using digital twin and AI technologies to optimize its product shoots and reduce duplicative efforts with a "single digital truth for product images." 

The initiative is freeing up time for marketers by using a digital twin platform to produce product images two times faster and at 50% of the previous cost, according to the company., providing employees with more time to be creative. 

Each digital twin contains all labels, packaging, and language formats in a single file, allowing the company to integrate product images into its content workflows with more ease and eliminating duplicative efforts as it delivers images to a variety of channels, including TV and digital commerce. 

Also read: Coca-Cola Is Scaling GenAI Marketing Campaigns With Digital Twins

Unilever's beauty and wellbeing segment was the first to pilot the technology. The company has now expanded the initiative to product lines for Tresemmé, Dove, Vaseline, and Clear, which have reportedly seen up to 55% savings and 65% faster content turnaround.

The company reports that Tresemmé Thailand has seen the following results:

• 87% reduction in content creation costs
• Content generated twice as fast
• 5% increase in purchase intent

The effort is part of Unilever’s Growth Action Plan (GAP) 2030 marketing strategy, which looks to elevate human creativity and optimize content personalization capabilities. 

Unilever highlighted on its website comments from Esi Eggleston Bracey, chief growth and marketing officer, at a recent NVIDIA conference: “This isn't about pushing out more content — anyone can do that. It's about starting with a deep understanding of people’s needs and desires, executing our campaigns with creativity and backed by a high-quality content creation machine to deliver desire at scale." 

“Our product twins can be deployed everywhere and anywhere, accurately, and consistently so content is generated faster and on brand," she said.