Unilever Is Using Cleanipedia on TikTok to Drive Gen-Z Purchasing
Gen Z is a demographic highly influenced by digital content, and Unilever is garnering insights and targeting the young cohort with dedicated cleaning content through its Cleanipedia content channel.
Through the effort, the company looks to increase engagement for its home care power brands, including its Dirt Is Good (also known as OMO, Persil, Surf Excel, Breeze, Ala, Skip, and Rinso), Cif, Domestos, Sunlight, and Comfort products.
The company is tapping into cleaning content to not only target a demographic who has been historically underserved in the household cleaning and laundry sector, said Unilever, but also to convert engagement into purchases.
More About Cleanipedia
Unilever launched the channel in 2013, originally as a website before starting to produce content for TikTok and Instagram. It now publishes content in several regions, including Argentina, Brasil, Denmark, the U.K., and more.
It has reached 30 million people, providing answers to cleaning questions such as “How do you remove superglue from skin or curry stains from a white shirt?” and “What do all the symbols on a washing machine dial actually mean?”
Jumping onto TikTok
On TikTok, over half (54%) of users have bought a household product after seeing it on the platform, said Unilever (across the board, not Unilever-specific) with almost three-quarters (71%) being unplanned purchases. Nearly 70% said that TikTok played a role in their discovery of household products, per Unilever.
The company entered the platform in 2023 to target Gen Z — a third of which claims to get cleaning and laundry advice from TikTok. It has since seen traffic to its Cleanipedia profile increase by a third, reaching over 2.4 billion views globally.
“With the continued rise in popularity of #CleanTok, Cleanipedia has become an established authority on TikTok and gone from strength to strength. In the last 10 months, we’ve seen a six-fold follower growth across 13 Unilever markets,” said Mario Dughi, Unilever home care digital and design lead, in a statement.
The company’s influencer strategy also allows it to gather insights about its target audience, helping to further understand trends to create authentic conversations that boost sales.
Converting Engagement Into Sales
Soon after its jump into TikTok, Unilever reaped the rewards, riding the wave of a trend that promoted using Cif Cream for cleaning white sneakers in the U.K. It contributed to a 38% increase in U.K. adults under 28 purchasing the product.
Now Unilever is seeing younger consumers take to the product, with 16.5% of Cif Cream consumers under the age of 34 purchasing in 2023 compared to just 12.1% in 2022. Interest for consumers under age 28 has also increased from 5.4% to 7.5% in that same time period.
The effort on TikTok has created a gateway for Unilever’s Home Care brands, helping to build credibility with Gen Z-ers through relevant and authentic content that translates into sales, said Dughi. “The pandemic saw Gen Z engage with cleaning in a way it hadn’t done before and that trend shows no sign of slowing down.”
