Packaging is a brand’s face. But in India, it’s the face of plastic pollution. With its products reaching 9 in 10 Indian households, Unilever needed a sustainable business transformation.

Smart Fill’s unique strategy changed Indian shopper behaviour by getting people to switch to an innovative sustainable packaging alternative, even if they didn’t care about the environment. Shoppers can bring their empty bottles to stores and Smart Fill them. It’s the smarter solution that leverages the Indian cultural practice of repurposing, allowing them to save money. It works because they save, not only on packaging costs, but by purchasing smaller amounts.

Approximately 36% of all plastics produced are used in packaging, approximately 85% of which ends up in landfills or as unregulated waste*. As one of the largest FMCG MNCs, Unilever wanted to take responsibility for the impact of its business on the environment. Hence, the brand has pledged to remove more than 100,000 tonnes of plastic entirely, by 2025.

Unilever products reach 9 out of 10 Indian households. With a population that is roughly equalled to the sum of 12 of the largest countries, India has one of the world’s largest plastic footprints*. This made it more important than ever, for Unilever to develop a smart strategy that would reimagine its plastic packaging and drive mass adoption of a sustainable packaging solution.

The solution needed to significantly impact Unilever’s global plastic reduction target for 2025, by reducing plastic consumption by more than 50kgs per day.

*Source: unep.org

Packaging is the face of a brand. It is also the face of plastic pollution.

Awareness about plastic pollution is at its peak because of various recycling drives, clean-ups, waste segregation, and sustainability pushes. But only 9% of plastic waste really gets recycled and viable alternatives are few and far apart.

Our strategy needed to turn ‘awareness but inaction’ into ‘actions that propel awareness’.

Convincing consumers to adapt to a new sustainable alternative is challenging. We explored consumers’ stance towards plastic-free alternatives and identified five cohorts (slide 4, Information Deck).

Eco Warriors: Already leading sustainable lifestyles.(5%)

Convenience Seekers: Awaiting effective alternatives.(10%)

Value Seekers: Need value exchange to switch.(20%)

Value Chasers: Prioritize value over sustainability.(30%)

Unawares: Completely unaware.(35%)

Eco Warriors and Convenience Seekers didn’t need convincing. Value Seekers, and Value Chasers did.

To connect with them, we needed a strategy that balanced value and sustainability drivers to inspire behavioural change.

Forget R&D, forget products, forget the brand itself. The answer lay with the Indian shoppers.

Since resources are limited, Indians have an inherent value-seeking behaviour that’s rooted in a resourcefulness mindset. We leveraged two cultural nuances that stem from it.

The first, is the culture of thrift. A guilt model like the West wouldn’t work here. Trade-offs are expected with every action. People carry their bags to a supermarket to avoid carry bag charges. It isn’t that they cannot afford a 7¢ carry bag on a bill of $70, but they dislike wastefulness.

The second, is the cultural practice of repurposing used packaging. Cookie tins become sewing kits, soda bottles are converted into spray bottles, ice-cream boxes are repurposed to store condiments.

Our strategy was to make the most of this resourcefulness and sense of thrift, without asking shoppers to sacrifice time and effort. So, what did we sacrifice?

We sacrificed Unilever’s most valuable branding asset – its packaging. Brave, isn’t it?

We introduced Smart Fill, an innovative in-store commerce experience that lets shoppers use other brands’ plastic waste as Unilever packaging. Shoppers can Smart Fill any empty container into packaging for Vim, Surf Excel, and Comfort.

Here’s how:

1.Bring any empty bottle to the store e.g.soda/other brands/Unilever

2.Place it under the dispenser

3.Select the desired product and quantity

4.Paste barcode on the refilled bottle and checkout

Leveraging an existing practice, eases shoppers into carrying their own bottles.

20% discount makes Smart Filling more cost-effective than packaged products.

It appeals to the consumers’ sense of resourcefulness. They save not only on packaging costs, but by purchasing smaller amounts. This increases product trials.

Letting other packaging dilute Unilever’s brand recall was a colossal risk, but it helped us transform the business.

We took away the branding, to build the brands.

Smart Fill is an incentivised behaviour change model that has opened new channels for Unilever. Owing to the strong cultural nuance, the model is bound to only work in countries like India. But given the country’s population, it’s as effective as implementing the model in 12 of the world’s largest countries.

We have implemented a circular economy approach – one in which resources are kept in use in a closed-loop system, rather than thrown away. This has helped Unilever to cut its dependence on virgin plastic and reuse old plastic.

- Reached ~ 349 MM consumers.

- 150 Litres are Smart Filled per hour.

- 85% repeat purchases.

- We earned PR worth USD1.5 MM.

- 57.2 Kg plastic reduction per day.

- Smart Fill extremely easy to operate. And at a cost-effective rate of just $2,597/station, we’ll introduce 10 new stations every month.

- Plastic reduction forecasted for 2025.