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When it comes to marketing and brand building, everything and nothing is changing.
The fundamentals remain the same. Creativity, the need to really understand consumers, to create differentiated brands and products that add value, and to ensure shoppers know about them and can find them.
The everything that’s changing is people. How we’re entertained, how and where we spend our time, who we trust. All in a world where so many things compete for our attention.
And we’re seeing an incredible revolution in our tools, media, retail and technology. The latest disruptor is AI. We’ve gone from predictions to generative. This year it’s agentic. Next, it will be physical and might even feel human.
For example, imagine a world where you set a budget for your groceries and your agent shops for you. They buy your toothpaste, your shampoo, your food – all based on your preferences and habits. Your choices are outsourced.
You’re not going to think about brands unless they matter to you. So how do we navigate that and really matter to people and not just machines?
If marketing today is about capturing hearts and minds, marketing tomorrow is about capturing hearts and machines. However, to really matter to people and capture their hearts, we need to disrupt with desire. That desire will, in turn, even feed the machines.
We’re transforming our approach to marketing to deliver what we’re calling Desire at Scale. Taking our brands beyond meeting people’s needs and wants, to meet their desires – those non-conscious urges that drive people to feel, “I have to have that”.
Traditionally, desire has been exclusive. Luxury products and experiences crafted for the select few. Desire at Scale makes it accessible for the many.
Desire is emotional, not rational. According to cognitive science, it’s feelings that drive desire. Feelings of pleasure, novelty, familiarity, fulfilment, trust and even belonging. All of which are universally relatable, yet deeply personal.
So how do we build a brand that people desire at scale? It starts with a rock-solid brand identity, and expressing that identity creatively in a way that’s relevant to people.
Relevance can’t be bought; it must be built. We have to earn trust, connection and engagement through ideas designed to be shared, not just seen. Ones that resonate locally, through communities, shared interests, people we trust… our everyday worlds.
Dirt Is Good is a great example. Known globally as OMO, Persil and Surf Excel, this is a brand that flexes across 60 markets while staying true to its belief: “Dirt and stains aren’t the enemy – they’re marks of a life well lived.”
We’ve taken this into sports, tapping into the category-driven insight that six out of ten girls fear playing sports due to period leaks. The brand has partnered with Arsenal Women’s team to challenge stigma and redefine blood stains as a mark of pride.
In Saudi Arabia, where period stains are rarely discussed, OMO took a different approach. We used henna artistry as a discreet, deeply personal way to educate women on how to remove blood stains, blending tradition with empowerment.
Our framework for expressing a brand’s desirability is SASSY: superior science, aesthetics, sensorials, shared by others and young spirited. Let me explain each element.
Superior science builds trust – one of the key cognitive drivers of desire. We’re talking about brands that don’t just use science, they own it. In a way that’s unique and compelling in the category.
Take Cif, our billion-euro home cleaning brand. Our latest product launch – Cif Infinite Clean – addresses the growing search for non-toxic ingredients. Using the science of natural probiotics, this product keeps cleaning for up to three days and makes your home smell like a spa. Its aesthetics are sleek, modern and distinctive for the category, helping elevate the desirability.
To earn a premium, a brand must look and feel premium. The whole experience needs to work together to build desire. That’s aesthetics. Nexxus Promend embodies beauty in a bottle. Seductive packaging with captivating design cues, crafted to be seen, felt and remembered. But this doesn’t just apply to beauty. Aesthetics contributed to one of our most successful Home Care innovations, Wonder Wash.
Next is sensorials. Taste and texture, flavour and scent, sound and rituals. Sensorials evoke deep emotional memories to build desire. Think of Magnum’s iconic crack of the chocolate with every bite. Or the creamy texture of Hellmann’s – its No. 8 Parfum de Mayonnaise was the unexpected scent we never knew we wanted.
The next S is shared by others. The biggest shift is moving from the traditional model of ‘one to many’, where a brand broadcasts one message to many people, to a ‘many to many’ model, where many people communicate many messages to many other people. This is about trust, novelty and a sense of belonging to a community. Finding your tribe and sharing with others.
Our Vaseline Verified campaign is the perfect example of this. With over 3.5 million social posts sharing ingenious ways to use the product, our scientists tested ideas to separate fact from fiction. The ones that worked were awarded an official Verified seal. With 63 million social interactions, it became the third most-awarded campaign at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, winning two Grands Prix and the prestigious Titanium award. It’s also compelling proof for the content-to-creator ecosystem, driving a 43% sales increase. A 155-year-old brand that’s breaking the internet.
And finally, young spirited. Brands must have cultural relevance. That isn’t about age – it’s about attitude. And it’s not something you can buy your way into. It must be earned. Dove knows this better than anyone.
The ultimate goal of desire at scale is to make our brands fly off the shelves. It’s about desirable brands delivering an authentic connection – that moment when a shopper thinks, “Yes! This is exactly what I want to buy.”
Take Dove’s partnership with Crumbl Cookies. A viral dessert cookie sensation in the US with a cult following and weekly new flavour drops. We launched a limited-edition body care collection at Walmart and, for the first time ever, Dove went pink.
Using content creators like the Turn Up Twins to get people hyped, the demand was such that we couldn’t keep it in stock. In fact, it was so successful that Walmart featured it in its earnings call. That’s how you make something desirable and shareable, so people add it to their cart.
Marketing needs a new model to transform how we connect with people. It’s about shifting from broadcasting to belonging, attention to connection, social to sales.
This isn’t just about shifting spend to social media channels or working with creators to market to people. It’s about really mattering to people.
That’s why we’re incredibly proud of Dove, our largest brand, winning three Grands Prix and the prestigious Glass: The Lion for Change at Cannes for its commitment to real beauty. An honour reserved for brands that don’t just reflect culture but shape it.
Since then, the brand has been dedicated to making beauty a source of happiness not anxiety, building the world’s largest self-esteem project for women and girls, and taking concrete actions to dismantle harmful beauty standards.
True impact comes from creativity being rooted in shared values and purpose.
So where does all this leave us? In a world where algorithms and agents will increasingly make our choices, we face a fundamental question: will we matter to people or just to machines?
In this dance between data and desire, between algorithms and aspiration, we’ve discovered that our humanity isn’t our limitation – it’s our superpower. Our most powerful advantage in the age of AI isn’t our ability to be more machine-like – it’s our ability to be more human.
And when we get this right – when we create brands that are desirable, innovative and impactful – we don’t just win in the marketplace. We create a future where technology serves humanity, not the other way around.
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