Hindustan Unilever (HUL) believes India’s 377 million Gen Z shoppers are rising as a structural drive that can reshape the way in which shopper items are found, consumed and bought, with social media, creators and new consumption events more and more influencing model demand.
The corporate has recognized Gen Z as one of many key structural shifts creating what it calls “New India”. HUL mentioned this cohort is altering not simply what shoppers purchase, but additionally how they uncover classes and the way they devour them.
“These shoppers are completely altering India,” HUL mentioned, pointing to the 377 million Gen Z shoppers within the nation. The corporate mentioned the affect could be felt throughout CPG consumption because the cohort adjustments class discovery, buy behaviour and consumption patterns.
Learn: HUL’s Gen Z bet: 30,000 creators, 500 messages and a social-first demand engine
That shift is already seen in classes the place social media helps create new consumption behaviours. In hair care, as an illustration, HUL mentioned the market is shifting past primary shampoo consumption in the direction of conditioners, masks, styling and therapy merchandise. The variety of hair straighteners in Indian houses has risen to 1.6 instances, with the corporate attributing a part of this transformation to social media.
The corporate’s method to advertising and marketing is altering accordingly. HUL mentioned it’s constructing a “social first demand engine” and making its manufacturers “extra fashionable, extra up to date, younger”. It presently reaches 30,000 creators in India, whereas 60% of its spends at the moment are on digital. The corporate can be constructing AI-enabled content material studios.
From influencers to a creator-led demand engine
For HUL, influencer advertising and marketing is not merely about including a star or creator to an promoting marketing campaign. The corporate is constructing a much wider creator ecosystem round its manufacturers.
HUL mentioned it has an ecosystem of greater than 30,000 digital content material creators, unfold throughout its portfolio and throughout the altering media panorama—from conventional tv to linked TV, digital and social platforms.
The corporate can be shifting away from the standard mass-marketing mannequin of 1 message delivered to a really giant viewers over an prolonged interval. On the premium finish, HUL described a mannequin by which a model can have nearly 500 messages, curated for 1000’s of various cohorts each month.
The target is to create what HUL described as “compound branding”, with content material and communication changing into more and more tailor-made to totally different shopper teams and events.
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That is significantly related as shopper behaviour turns into extra fragmented. HUL mentioned India can’t be handled as one homogeneous market and that totally different shopper teams and geographies require totally different propositions, channels and types of communication.
Gen Z can be altering what manufacturers want to face for
HUL’s emphasis on youthful shoppers can be seen in how it’s growing and repositioning manufacturers.
Vaseline, for instance, is being taken into newer codecs and areas, together with Vaseline Gluta-H coming into face care and Vaseline CloudSoft coming into lip care. HUL described these improvements as “intrinsically social first”, whereas retaining the model’s belief and science credentials.
Its Kissan technique is one other instance. HUL described the model’s chutney marketing campaign as intrinsically social, with cooks and folks on-line demonstrating new methods to make use of the product. The corporate sees these flavour hacks and new use circumstances as significantly related to youthful shoppers.
In magnificence and wellbeing, HUL mentioned Liquid I.V., which it described as a extremely cherished Gen Z hydration model within the US and different markets, was dropped at India and “in a short time” turned a go-to model for Gen Z.
HUL additionally highlighted Easy, its skincare model, which has scaled 10 instances since its launch in India and crossed ₹200 crore in annual recurring income. The corporate attributed the expansion to differentiated positioning round delicate pores and skin, a “Gen Z first” shopper community-building method and a powerful omnichannel playbook.
However HUL shouldn’t be treating India as a single Gen Z market
Whereas Gen Z represents a serious structural shift, HUL’s broader shopper technique is constructed round more and more differentiated teams.
The corporate describes shoppers by means of the lenses of “democratizers” and “premiumizers”. Democratizers characterize a chance to extend consumption and utilization—for instance, by growing the variety of shampoo wash events. Premiumizers, in the meantime, are shoppers in search of extra advantages and prepared to commerce up in worth per millilitre.
Giant cities supply alternatives so as to add new customers and create markets, whereas giant cities and on-line channels present alternatives for brand new codecs, masstige and status choices. HUL harassed that these teams will not be neat, mutually unique segments, however overlapping shopper swimming pools.
The corporate is tailoring manufacturers accordingly. Clinic Plus is being centered on democratizers, significantly in rural India, whereas Dove is positioned in the direction of premiumizers throughout the nation, with specific alternatives in small cities and tier 4/rural markets. Nexus, in the meantime, is positioned solely on-line.
Consumption is altering past Gen Z
HUL additionally pointed to a different main shopper shift: the rising participation of ladies within the workforce. It mentioned workforce participation amongst ladies has risen from round 23–25% to 43%, with a lot of the rise coming from rural India but additionally from city areas.
In line with HUL, when ladies enter the workforce, family behaviour adjustments—together with cooking, chores, self-presentation and consumption. The corporate sees alternatives in comfort, time-saving merchandise and cooking aids in consequence.
The corporate additionally sees important headroom in consumption amongst democratizers, arguing that elevated frequency of utilization can itself develop into a development driver. On the different finish, premiumisation is creating alternatives as shoppers search extra advantages and commerce up.
HUL’s broader level is that India is changing into more and more fragmented, with totally different shoppers discovering and consuming merchandise in several methods. The corporate described the nation as a “kaleidoscope” of thousands and thousands of various Indias, with development rising throughout pin codes and shopper teams.
AI provides one other layer to the advertising and marketing shift
HUL is pairing its social-first method with larger use of AI throughout content material and media.
The corporate mentioned its AI-enabled instruments could make content material creation 50–75% sooner and probably scale back prices by 50–75%, whereas additionally enabling sooner turnaround and larger effectiveness. It’s also utilizing AI alongside its proprietary knowledge and media capabilities to enhance real-time media deployment.
The outcome, in response to HUL, is a advertising and marketing mannequin that’s shifting from broad-reach communication in the direction of a way more dynamic system of creators, cohorts, content material, social listening and real-time media deployment.
For the corporate, Gen Z is subsequently not merely one other demographic to market to. Its emergence is a component of a bigger transformation in how Indian shoppers uncover classes, develop preferences, experiment with merchandise and in the end determine what enters their procuring baskets.
HUL’s response is to construct manufacturers that may stay culturally related throughout these quickly altering shopper journeys—utilizing creators, social platforms, differentiated propositions and AI to make its demand engine extra attentive to the way in which shoppers now behave.
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