UNILEVER BIO-SURFACTANTS
This was our second project with Unilever on MDI; although a similar theme around surfactants, this time we were specifically focusing on the technology behind their new bio-surfactants. Within this 3-week project we were tasked with developing a range of communications and storytelling that could explain to the consumer how this new technology might work.
In semester one we completed a project with Unilever and Phil Sams around hand hygiene. This semester we kept the same theme around hygiene and cleaning, but focusing more on the biotechnology and natural cleaning. Our client for this project entitled ‘Power of Nature’ was Neil Parry, part of the R&D department at Unilever. He is at the forefront of the campaign around new bio-surfactant technology. Our brief was to explore the ‘future of bio’, and the output was to create compelling narratives and demos as appropriate to communicate these technologies and the opportunities they open up, especially, how they exploit the wonderful “power of nature”. The communication challenge for us was to address the internal Unilever business through consumer facing narratives.
![]() BRIEFING WITH PHIL SAMS | ![]() BRAINSTORMING WITH MARK | ![]() IDEA GENERATION |
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![]() SKYPE MEETING WITH PHIL | ![]() VIDEO EDITING |

WEEK ONE: INITIAL IDEATION AND SCOPING
We started this new project on Monday 17th of March, the briefing was in the afternoon with Nick, Phil and Mark. To begin with Mark asked us to brainstorm all we knew about biotechnology, to get us warmed up. Then Phil went through some work that last years’ MDI did around a similar technology. After he had run through the background slides, Neil our client called into the meeting to explain a little more about what was expected and the properties of this new technology. Mark helped us identify the real benefits from a consumer’s point of view, as a starting place. These were:
Effort – 80% less effort second time round
Time
Cleanliness
Less product used
Less Water used
Environmentally friendly
Stops bacteria adhering
After identifying these benefits, the teaching staff left us to it. The cohort decided after the success of the last project that we should have a project manager again. A few suggested I take the role, I was happy to do it if no one else wanted to put himself or herself forward. I did find this role quite challenging within the cohort but by the end I thoroughly enjoyed my role as PM and I felt proud of the team by the presentation stage. There were a few documents we were given to review, so on the Monday we individually went away to read through these. On the Tuesday when we reconvened, I began to write a plan of action for the cohort and identifying the main areas of interest/development within this project. From reviewing all the literature, briefing and email from Mark Bailey, I wrote out on the board what I felt to be our 3 main stages of the project would be and some keys words to develop a focus around. These were:
Stage 1: Research Stage
2: Ideation
Stage 3: Development of Deliverables
The stand out key words/phrases I identified were:
- Power of nature
- Replacement
- Harmful chemicals
- Communicating the technology
- Primary consumer focus
- Secondary benefits to Unilever
- Storytelling
In addition I asked everyone in the class to write on the wall their skills and the area of interest to them around this project. This proved helpful as it meant we could organize the teams based on what everyone’s strengths were. Ashlee and myself then came up with 4 focussed teams, and asked each person to select a topic area of research. The groups were:
‘The power of nature’
Storytelling and analogies
Pros and Cons for all the stakeholders
Case Studies
We organized to meet on the Thursday to review the key learning’s behind each topic and how we could use that information to further develop our project. I then proceeded to develop a time plan for the cohort and ensured everyone knew what they were doing, and everyone was communicating. On the Thursday we had an early morning session with Mark, he said we should not share our findings yet, but have a mass ideation session since we had all conducted individual research. We then began drawing out the ideas on the big roll of paper, some ideas were products or uses for the technology, others were around campaign stories; how we might set this up as a campaign. After half an hour or so once the there was no white space left on the paper, I suggested everyone look at each other’s ideas and add to it. Unfortunately people then lost focus, so I tried a different technique, encouraging everyone to stand up one at a time and share their idea with the cohort and I would add it to one of three categories, campaign, product or market. We had a huge array of ideas from almost everyone in the room and after a little explanation, everyone was clear on each other’s concepts. We left the ideas to be considered and explored for the following day. On the Friday we met to consider our next steps as a cohort. I suggested we break off into 2 teams, based on preference and skill set for campaign and product. Francis suggested there should be a team focusing on market trends as Phil Sams had mentioned we needed to consider emerging markets in other countries, so we formed an extra team to inform us of what is popular over in these other markets and whether bio surfactants are big over there. I put myself onto the campaign group as I had a few campaign ideas already and I also can film and video edit. Phil had suggested from the beginning of the project that the communications we produce (posters/video adverts/visuals etc.) should be at the forefront of this project and they were the emphasis for this assignment. As project manager I wanted to ensure that the campaigns created were clear and professional in their output.
![]() Brief from Neil Parry | ![]() Phil's explanation | ![]() Initial Scoping |
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![]() My time plan for the Cohort | ![]() Idea generation | ![]() Skills list |
![]() Research teams |

WEEK TWO: CAMPAIGN IDEA DEVELOPMENT
We began the second week in our separate teams, the campaign team consisted of Lewis, Laura, Max, Luke, Catie and myself. We did an inspiration wall to explore some existing campaign ideas; the ideas I put forward were around Humans vs. Nature. Interesting ideas were offered such as, ‘It’s always easier the second time’, ‘Save time don’t waste time’, ‘inspired by nature’, ‘mother nature knows best’. Here is an image of our ideation wall:

The following day, Tuesday, I began developing a video to fit within the campaign ‘human vs. nature’. Luke suggested we all conduct work on a different campaign individually and piece it together on the Thursday. I began creating a video to show were we might take influence from nature to create a better product. The video shows a montage of people attempting to fly and then a bumble bee taking off; it then states ‘nature knows best’. The idea behind the human vs. nature analogy was to build a series of adverts comparing the two and showing were humans take influence from nature as being a improvement. Here is the first video I created:
During these few days, Laura created a flow chart to clarify the stakeholders and individuals involved within the project and Luke created some posters show better explain the technology. Laura and myself decided on Wednesday that we needed to come up with an overarching brand idea for the new technology, ‘contains bio-surfactant’; similar to something like Aloe Vera which is applied to all sorts of different products. We began brainstorming around words and phrases and also brand values for our new technology. We eventually came to the name Biolever and decided to stick with it, in order to progress on. Here is the images of the Flow Chart and some of our idea generation around the name and branding:


On Thursday we had an interim meeting with Phil Sams, he wanted to see our directions and what we had achieved so far. As we were speaking over Skype it was difficult to show him any physical work, the trends team went first and spoke about emerging markets, then the product team; they had developed a series of products, basic to radical to use and apply this biotechnology. Laura and myself spoke to Phil about our campaign ideas so far, but we did not have much time to show him our video and other work. Phil’s feedback, overall for our campaign group Phil was happy with our progress and our ideas we were taking forward, although he said we should have presented first and the products and themes should be applied to our campaigns rather than the other way round. Simply, we were not talking enough and collaborating as a cohort. Some of the ideas that were scrapped Phil mentioned we should use, such as the Biolever shampoo. He also gave feedback to the product group explaining they were not being adventurous enough with their product ideas. After this meeting we spoke with Mark Bailey on Friday afternoon, we showed him all our work, which Luke had gathered together and we went through one by one. I showed my work first, which Mark seemed impressed with, and then talked about some of the other ideas I wanted to design and create. Mark was a little disappointed we had not showed Phil all this valuable work we had done as a cohort, but we did have limitations to what we could have shown him. As we continued to go through the work, Mark clarified a few issues people had after speaking to Phil, and identified what our next steps should be. The cohort discussed what was achievable in the time we had left. The deadline had now been brought forward to Thursday so we did not have long to put all this work together in one coherent handover. Valeria suggested we marry up all the existing campaign ideas and work out where the product and trend information might fit in, and also work out what tasks we had and what we still needed to do. Although this was a long discussion afternoon, we were all extremely clear on the steps leading up to Thursday and what we needed to achieve. Laura and myself then went off to storyboard and film our ‘adcept’ sequence (adcept is a word created by Laura meaning a concept and advert combined) around shampoo that cleans your shower for you. Here are some photographs of the directions we chose within our discussion on the Friday and the video I filmed and edited to explain some features of the Biolever surfactant.
![]() Matching the ideas | ![]() Matching the ideas together | ![]() Phil Skype meeting |
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![]() Phil Skype meeting |
SHOWER PRODUCT ADVERT

WEEK THREE: FINALISING AND POLISHING DELIVERABLES
On Friday Luke and I discussed how we could communicate all the work in a multimedia document, Luke suggested the easiest way to do this would be to create a website. As Luke had created one in the past for the WhyVote project I was confident this output would be professional. On the Friday, the campaigns that had been put forward were:
Save time don’t waste time – being developed by Sam, Lewis and Lola
It’s always easier the second time – developed by Laura and myself
Bio mimicry – a booklet created by Luke
Human vs. Nature – developed by myself and Max
The butterfly effect – developed by Catie and Alain
Shower cleaner – developed by Laura and myself
General poster campaign – developed by Luke
The products designed and developed were aligned to the campiagns, for example the showerhead cleaner product and the mist pod for ‘save time don’t waste time’ campaign. I helped Luke with some of the design of the website, Valeria took the lead with the product group, giving each a regional persona to explain the background of the products market a little more. Catie and Max created a clear business plan in a visual way to show the client. On Tuesday we had a short meeting with Phil that I hosted, he wanted to ensure we had moved on since the previous Thursdays meeting and our presentation material was appropriate for the final handover. I summarized everyone’s work as a cohort to keep the meeting focused, and showed him 2 of the videos developed and Luke initial website layout. Phil thought a website was a good idea, but was concerned about its privacy, so we agreed to only have it online when we were presenting. A successful meeting all-round, and now we just had to finish all the work.
At this point the team really pulled together to create a clear, unified end result. I continued to create another 2 videos around Human vs. Nature campaign to tie everything together; and on Wednesday Laura and myself had a morning of baking to create the ‘easier second time round’ campaign. This video was great fun to do, and I felt really communicated the idea the best out of the 5 ‘adcepts’ I created. The editing did not take long to complete, as I am quite comfortable video editing after a fair bit of practice. For the remainder of the Wednesday, I helped make changes to the website with Luke, to ensure it flowed properly and all the content was in the correct place. There were a few issues, but after 8pm I headed home and Luke continued till late editing the website.
The presentation took place at 9am on Thursday morning via Skype, unfortunately Neil could not make it so we presented to Phil, Mark and Nick and rescheduled to Friday afternoon to speak with Neil. Phil had the website open on his laptop and Skyped on his iPad so it worked well as he could follow the presentation and conversation. I was the main presenter for the morning, I explained the layout of the website and how it worked, and then took Phil through the campaigns. As they should be self explanatory, I did not need to say much about each. Marc and Huy spoke about some of the product trends and Sam spoke more in detail about each product. Then Catie went through some of the business planning she had done. Phil thought the visuals for this was great and mentioned Neil would love these. The main feedback from this presentation was extremely positive, both Mark and Nick mentioned the text on the website needed re-wording and the order of the work needed to be changed. Sam and myself went through the words and altered them, and Laura then went through them with Nick and Mark after the presentation was over. The final presentation with Neil on the Friday went well; after a few technical issues at the beginning, and although we were unable to see each other over Skype, he was able to access all the work via the website and I talked him through it, just as I had done the day before with Phil. Our feedback from all the staff and clients involved did take me back a bit. Phil was extremely impressed with the final outcome and couldn’t believe how much we had achieved since the last meeting. I felt our final work was some of our best as a cohort, it was professional and well considered and it did have all the elements in there that were asked for in the brief. I hope that the next semester the standard remains the same.
![]() EDITING THE VIDEOS | ![]() LEWIS RECORDING FOR VIDEO |
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![]() FINAL PRESENTATION | ![]() FINAL PRESENTATION |
![]() FINAL PRESENTATION | ![]() FINAL PRESENTATION |
FINAL WEEK VIDEOS I PRODUCED
As the work is confidential for Unilever the website has been taken down so it cannot be linked to here, but below are some other videos and visuals the cohort completed over the project.
![]() MULTI-PURPOSE PRODUCTS | ![]() MISTPOD | ![]() MISTPOD IN USE |
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![]() MULTIPURPOSE CLEANING |