Brand Purpose: The Sunlight Project in Indonesia

Marketing strategies are increasingly challenged in addressing, at the same time, three types of goals: company profitability, consumer satisfaction and positive social impact. In this perspective it is important to enrich the value proposition and to communicate the ethical and responsible orientation of the brand and its products. These considerations now find their expression in the concept of brand purpose, intended as the impact that brand wants to have on the society beyond the functional and symbolic benefits. The brand plays a crucial role in making visible the impact of the company on society. Naturally that implies a contemporary conception of the brand conceived as a trust-based resource with various levels of potentiality, enacted by specific evolutionary vectors. Among these, abstraction vector has a special relevance as it is the base of the enlargement of the brand meaning and value proposition. After having summarized the main implications connected to the managing of this vector and having clarified the link between brand purpose and brand equity, the paper presents the case study, regarding the strategy adopted by Unilever to reengineer the brand Sunlight (Unilever oldest brand - top global player in the dishwash market) in Indonesia, one of the biggest and most important markets for the company.