PURPOSE SOAP

LAUNCHING THE PURPOSE

The Dutch consultancy agency de droomfabriek facilitates social processes that guide organizations on their path to becoming more purposeful. In 2016 they helped develop a purpose strategy for Unilever Benelux, and commissioned creatuals to design something special to launch the company’s new purpose line, “we create social warming”. 

About 70 managers from Unilever’s Netherland and Benelux chapters gathered for the purpose launch. To mark this milestone in the company’s century-old history, we invited them to participate in a memorable experience that connected the company’s roots with its newfound direction. Soap, one of the two first Unilever products back in the 1800s – was chosen to play the main role in this Creatual. 

How it played out: Each manager was given a piece of soap and a wooden pin to inscribe his/her own purpose or intention with the company. All 70 pieces were then melted together in a big pan and poured into a mold on a long table. The fluid white soap now represented a blank canvas on which one of the managers wrote down the new purpose line. A few hours later, when the soap was dried, it was cut into small blocks again. In teams all participants where invited to wash their hands with this purpose-loaded soap, true to the motto “Wash off the past – live the new!” 300 pieces of soap where nicely rapped and handed out. Also to be found in all Unilever toilets in the following years.