17304: Unilever CMGO Going Away.

 

Adweek reported on CMO moves at Unilever, whereby the mega-marketer appears to have simultaneously reduced DEIBA+ and increased the employment challenges faced by US Black women.

 

Unilever Won’t Replace the CMGO Title as Esi Eggleston Bracey Exits 

 

Instead, beauty and wellbeing CMO Leandro Barreto will add enterprise duties to his remit

 

By Rebecca Stewart

 

Esi Eggleston Bracey, Unilever’s chief marketing and growth officer (CMGO), is set to leave in January 2026 after just over two years in the role and eight years with the business.

 

The CMGO position will not be replaced like-for-like, Unilever confirmed to ADWEEK. Instead, Leandro Barreto, chief marketing officer, Unilever Beauty and Wellbeing, will extend his remit to include Unilever’s enterprise marketing agenda.

 

The move reflects what Unilever describes as the next phase of its marketing transformation, which will bring global marketing capabilities closer to its business groups, resulting in faster execution and impact.

 

Bracey will stay on through January to support Barreto in the transition.

 

A new marketing era

 

In 2023, Unilever (which owns over 400 brands) restructured its business around five key groups: personal care; beauty and well-being; nutrition; home care; and ice cream, which was spun off in December 2025 as the Magnum Ice Cream company.

 

As the restructuring took hold, Eggleston Bracey was appointed as CMGO to lead the team of marketers overseeing these divisions.

 

She also took responsibility for Unilever’s network of digital marketing, media, and commerce hubs, which pool talent from across the business to deliver “seamless consumer experiences” across platforms.

 

Bracey joined Unilever in 2018 as evp and chief operating officer overseeing its personal care division in North America.

 

During that time, she pioneered the company’s then purpose-driven marketing approach. She also spearheaded Dove’s efforts to back the Crown Act, a proposed federal ban on workplace discrimination based on hairstyle or texture.

 

In her two years as CMGO, Bracey has been credited with leading Unilever into its digital marketing era, placing an emphasis on driving brand relevance at scale across brands, including Dove, Hellmann’s, and Persil. She’s also pioneered AI experiments to drive marketing and content efficiencies.

 

Barreto, a 23-year Unilever vet, will now be tasked with bridging Unilever’s long-term growth ambitions with business group-level execution.

 

A ‘sales and marketing’ machine

 

Since taking the reins in March 2025, CEO Fernando Fernandez has been increasing Unilever’s marketing budget to build a “marketing and sales machine” in an environment ripe with challengers and where consumers are cutting discretionary spend.

 

So far, his strategy has included a pledge to invest 30 to 50% of its $8 billion annual ad spend to “social-first” campaigns, and work with 20-times more influencers in the process.

 

Beauty and wellbeing, for which Barreto oversees marketing, have been central to pushing up Unilever’s profits, which increased 3.9% year-on-year to reach $17.2 million in October.

16663: Dove Real Screwy Media Plan.

 

Here’s an advertorial from the recently spotlighted Dove Real Beauty propaganda taking an anti-AI stance, pontificating for the kind of beauty Unilever wants AI to learn. Right.

 

What makes the preachy platform so ridiculous? The advertorial is running in beauty and fashion publications like Vogue, where the magazine content and advertisements nearly exclusively present supermodel standards—and presumably successfully, as such publishers and advertisers appear to maintain their global popularity.

 

It’s clear proof that Dove and Unilever have failed in their self-absorbed, delusional, and hypocritical ambitions to redefine beauty.

16611: AI Proves Dove’s Real Beauty Is Real Bullshit…?

Advertising Age spotlighted a new performative promotion from the Dove Real Beauty campaign—a video titled, “The Code.”

 

Now the Unilever brand is pledging to never use AI in its advertising. Given the surging interest in AI, the stunt seems like an opportunistic declaration—and unnecessarily redundant, as the self-absorbed campaign is supposedly rooted in portraying “real” women.

 

BTW, the video—created by Sao Paulo-based Soko—features a woman in the opening that appears to be model-quality talent. The video is also most focused on romancing the AI image of a White woman.

 

Dove boasts that adding “Dove Real Beauty” to AI prompts for beautiful women leads to images from its campaign. Duh. Such extraordinary bullshit.

 

If Dove’s long-standing grandstanding had even minimal effect on global culture, why would AI’s perception of beauty automatically maintain the Eurocentric standards that Dove has allegedly sought to counteract for decades?

 

“The Code” ultimately proves that the 20-year-old Dove Real Beauty campaign has utterly failed to achieve its propagandistic goal.

 

For Dove, AI stands for Absolute Insincerity.

 

Dove pledges not to use AI to portray real people in its ads

 

Anti-AI stance comes as the Dove Real Beauty campaign marks 20 years

 

By Phoebe Bain

 

For Dove, real beauty means no artificial intelligence. In the newest campaign for its long-running Real Beauty platform, the Unilever brand pledges to never use AI in its advertising to portray real people, while introducing a prompt that will yield more realistic body representations for people who do use AI to search for beauty images.

 

The skin care and hair care brand’s new “Real Beauty Prompt Guidelines” provide instructions for creating images using generative AI programs that are representative of “real beauty.” The effort comes as Dove celebrates the 20th year of the iconic campaign.

 

“Pledging to never use AI in our communications is just one step. We will not stop until beauty is a source of happiness, not anxiety, for every woman and girl,” Dove Chief Marketing Officer Alessandro Manfredi said in a recent email to Ad Age.

 

A new ad called “The Code” intends to shed light on AI’s impact on beauty standards. The video begins by showing what AI comes up with when prompted to create images of “the most beautiful woman in the world” (she’s blonde, thin and white), and it ends with what AI creates when prompted with “the most beautiful woman in the world, according to Dove Real Beauty Ad.” The latter AI-generated images show diverse women who look far more realistic. The ad includes a brief flashback to one of the original Real Beauty ads from 2004.

 

Other than for “The Code,” Dove has not used AI to represent real people in its ads, a brand spokesperson told Ad Age.

 

The ad was created by Sao Paulo-based Soko.

 

New study, other industry efforts

 

Dove conducted a global study for its Real Beauty campaign anniversary to better understand how people’s perception of beauty has changed in the two decades since the campaign launched. It found that AI has impacted the level of pressure women feel to be a certain type of beautiful, with 39% of women surveyed saying they feel “pressure to alter their appearance because of what they see online, even when they know it’s fake or AI-generated.”

 

The study also found that 73% of women feel more pressure to be beautiful than they did eight years ago, while 85% said they’ve been exposed to harmful beauty content online. Conducted by Edelman’s data consultancy Edelman DXI between November and December 2023, researchers spoke with 33,000 respondents in 20 countries for the survey.

 

Dove isn’t the only brand that has highlighted how AI images can negatively impact women. Direct-to-consumer period underwear brand Thinx’s new “GetBodyWise” campaign, created with BBDO Los Angeles, called attention to how AI has a tendency to characterize women’s health issues as inherently shameful, due to the ways in which AI is trained by biased human input.

 

Other companies, including CVS, have also made commitments around emphasizing beauty standard authenticity in their marketing materials. In 2021, CVS announced it had reached full transparency in marking beauty imagery either with its CVS Beauty Mark, for imagery that wasn’t materially altered, or with labeling signifying “digitally altered” images.

 

“At Dove, we seek a future in which women get to decide and declare what real beauty looks like—not algorithms. As we navigate the opportunities and challenges that come with new and emerging technology, we remain committed to protect, celebrate, and champion Real Beauty,” Manfredi said.

16475: Tastes Like Systemic Racism—Cubed.

 

Two White advertising agencies—MullenLowe UK and Deutsch NY—are credited with this concept for Unilever brand Knorr Bouillon Cubes.

 

Wow, talk about putting the con in concept. Although it does underscore the obscenity of excess and exclusivity in Adland. That is, a global conglomerate hands ginormous bags of gold bullion to big White ad agencies—who come up with a tiny idea that is trumpeted as award-worthy genius. The description even made references to Cardi B and Gigi Hadid, so there’s a touch of cultural appropriation too.

 

Meanwhile, minority-owned shops get a few crumbs and must sustain on lukewarm chicken broth.

 

16369: BRIDGE Over Troubled Waters In Adland.

 

Advertising Age published performative PR from BRIDGE, an enterprise that the trade publication labeled as follows: “an independent trade organization pushing for diversity, equity, and inclusion in marketing.”

 

Not sure why BRIDGE would be deemed independent, given its “Leaders” include a Board of Directors defined as “the governing body of BRIDGE, composed of a combination of DE&I leaders, business leaders, and other C-suite leaders in organizations who are driving the change agenda internally.” That is, the board features up to 30 individuals whose professional roles cover Chief Marketing Officers, CEOs, and Human Heat Shields from White advertising agencies. Conspicuously absent are any legitimate ad agency leaders—to twist a phrase, “Where are all the White people?”

 

How can one assume independence in relationships firmly rooted in codependence? Hell, it’s almost laughable that these folks—while likely well-intentioned and respectable corporate citizens—cannot offer evidence to prove they’re driving the change agenda internally, externally, or in any dimension. This especially applies to the White advertising agencies, where annual confessions confirm firmly established and perpetuated systemic racism.

 

All of which makes BRIDGE sorta offensive. If the representatives from brands like Campbell’s, Colgate-Palmolive, H&R Block, and Unilever were honestly dedicated to change, they would burn their bridges with Adland representatives such as Publicis Groupe and WPP. After all, the co-conspiratorial unions symbolize hypocrisy of the highest order.

 

BRIDGE is part of a thoroughly damaged infrastructure.

 

Brands Pilot DE&I Program To Foster Companywide Inclusion

 

After finding many brands’ social posts were 23 years behind on representation, DE&I trade org BRIDGE created a program that is being piloted by Campbell Soup Co., Condé Nast and Sephora

 

By Lindsay Rittenhouse

 

The majority of the top 50 brands that post content to social media are 23 years behind in terms of reflecting the actual racial makeup of America, based on U.S. Census data, according to a recent analysis by BRIDGE, an independent trade organization for progressing diversity, equity and inclusion in marketing.

 

That analysis was used as the jumping-off point for BRIDGE’s new Inclusion Maturity Assessment and Capability Building Program (dubbed IMAX for short), which it is launching to help brands implement inclusion as a business practice across their entire organizations, internally and externally, to drive growth.

 

“Our whole mission is to move the narrative of DE&I away from philosophy to operationalizing inclusion as a business practice because we fundamentally believe that it's the next opportunity for business growth,” said Sheryl Daija, the founder and CEO of BRIDGE, which is an acronym for the gaps within belonging, representation, inclusion, diversity and equity. “Unfortunately, we have seen the attacks that can happen when you’re talking about philosophy, opinions and beliefs, versus when you have something that is steeped with the same rigor that other business practices have.”

 

Marketers including Campbell Soup Co., Condé Nast and Sephora are piloting the program, which involves evaluating the equities and inequities that exist for underrepresented communities across companies’ product availability, pricing structures and services. The program starts with understanding where companies are in terms of their inclusion efforts both internally and externally—rating them on a maturity scale across 72 business practices and five dimensions of the workplace and marketplace. Then, a team of experts works on how to tackle the gaps they identify and implement change for the companies.

 

“We were excited about BRIDGE’s IMAX program as it extends beyond the scope of existing DE&I assessments that are primarily focused on culture and the workplace to include marketplace actions,” said Abigail Jacobs, senior VP of brand and integrated marketing, Sephora. “As a retailer with extensive programs around building equity across our business, and especially our stores, we’re always working to ensure that our practices drive positive impact and change.”

 

The IMAX social media analysis revealed most brands are 23 years behind in properly reflecting the racial makeup of the U.S. in social content.

 

IMAX is led by BRIDGE’s board of directors and steering committee, as well as an academic team that included Omar Rodríguez-Vilá, professor of marketing and director of education at the Business & Society Institute at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School; Sundar Bharadwaj, professor of marketing at University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business; and Dionne Nickerson, assistant professor of marketing at Indiana University.

 

The program evaluates DE&I across various areas of a company including within the organization, their marketing management processes, commercial practices, communications and advocacy programs.

 

“The biggest gap we see is in commercial practices, in products that are designed specifically to address the needs of underrepresented communities,” Rodríguez-Vilá said.

 

Most companies do not properly measure the market, Rodríguez-Vilá said. Currently, they measure the market based on “‘Where is my current revenue coming from?’ and ‘Who are my biggest customers? If 80% of my customer base comes from this group, then I go after that group.’

 

"You’re not looking at the potential growth that could be embedded in segments that are actually not consuming you, or are significantly under-consuming you, because you’re not including them in your offer,” he said.

 

Each of the 72 business practices being evaluated in the IMAX program is rated against a “maturity” scale of 70%, which represents a high level of inclusion.

 

“Following the assessment, it was awesome to see that the analysis reinforced many of our business practices were already on the right track,” Jacobs said. “We have 11 different internal workstreams focused on different parts of our DE&I journey and have been able to share these findings and act quickly on integrating them into our current work.”

 

The IMAX team used artificial intelligence to do the first part of its research, the social media analysis of the top 50 brands’ content that had people in it, Rodríguez-Vilá said. "We measured the diversity of skin tone, diversity of hair type, inclusion of people with disabilities and diversity of body types.”

 

In that analysis, Unilever’s Dove rose to the top and was one of the only brands that was not 23 years behind in terms of inclusion practices across its social media posts. Dove has done various campaigns to advocate for underrepresented groups including taking a stand against race-based hair discrimination.

 

“I receive a lot of data in my role, but I have never seen data of this nature that allows us to understand inclusion as a metric and helps us identify which practices we can share across brands to create and accelerate even further impact,” said Tish Archie-Oliver, head of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, Unilever U.S., and a BRIDGE Board member.

 

Dove declined further comment because it is not part of the IMAX pilot program.

 

Still, being inclusive across social media content is only one sliver of the pie and the IMAX program comes as companies have downsized their DE&I departments amid economic headwinds.

 

“The key is not to think of inclusion as a separate thing,” Rodríguez-Vilá said. “The first thing you need to tackle is the business case. There is also a role for a moral case and many leaders need to be able to articulate that to their employees. This is not just about selling more stuff. But you need both because, in the absence of a business case, the moral case is not going to sustain you.”

 

Rodríguez-Vilá said what also went into developing the IMAX program was having chief marketers and chief diversity officers work closer together than they’re typically used to—both parties are responsible for evaluating DE&I within the internal organization and in how the company is showing up in the marketplace. Typically, internal matters were left to chief diversity officers while marketplace matters were left to chief marketing officers.

 

“It unlocks this collaboration that didn’t exist before,” Daija said. “[Before] it was very siloed. IMAX creates a collaboration to allow all capabilities and practices to be dependent on each other, but also to leverage the power of each other.”

15703: BHM 2022—Madam C.J. Walker.

Just in time for Black History Month, Advertising Age reported on the relaunch of the iconic Madam C.J. Walker brand, acquired by Unilever—yes, Unilever—when the mega-advertiser picked up Sundial Brands in 2017. Hey, Jimmie “JJ” Walker is available for advertising opportunities. Expect a “When C.J. Met JJ” promotional video soon.

 

Black Beauty Brand Madam C.J. Walker Relaunches In Bid To Reach Younger Buyers

 

After being acquired by Unilever, the historic Black haircare brand is reaching out to Gen Z while reminding customers of its roots

 

By Jade Yan

 

More than 100 years after it was founded, Black beauty brand Madam C.J. Walker is relaunching with new products and a brand overhaul that includes a new name: Madam by Madam C.J. Walker. The brand, created in the early 1900s by Black entrepreneur and self-made millionaire Madam C.J. Walker, is supporting the overhaul with a campaign that mixes the brand’s traditional focus on quality with an appeal to the diverse needs of a younger customer.

 

The brand, acquired by Unilever under Sundial Brands five years ago, is targeting Gen Z consumers with the new ads. Agencies involved in the campaign include Black-owned The Kitchen Table, and Black-owned Team Epiphany.

 

The campaign promotes 11 new products, which focus on scalp care and hair growth. While seeking to appeal to new audiences, the brand is also pointing towards its heritage—and there is plenty of history behind the brand. It began when Sarah Breedlove, who changed her name to Madam C.J. Walker, founded a beauty company in 1910. Walker, who had been a farmworker and laundrywoman, was inspired to start her business after trying to find remedies for her own scalp problems.

 

According to Walker’s great-great granddaughter and brand spokesperson A’Lelia Bundles, Walker’s reputation when she founded her company was based on high-quality products and hair health. She was also an activist, donating time and money to causes such as anti-lynching legislation, according to a website created by Bundles. Her story inspired a Netflix series called “Self Made,” which debuted in 2020 and stared Octavia Spencer, Tiffany Haddish, Carmen Ejogo.

 

The brand today is showing that it is staying true to these roots. “We wanted to honor that legacy and also have a remix on it,” said Cara Sabin, CEO of Sundial Brands, which includes Madam C.J. Walker, along with SheaMoisture, Nubian Heritage and Nyakio.

 

According to Sabin, the brand is going after consumers who value quality but also are interested in experimenting with their hair.

 

The campaign includes a spot showing women rocking a variety of hairstyles, from flicking their braids around to touching their new curls—“Let’s stop asking: did you change your hair?” says a voiceover. “And no—you know you can’t touch it.” Sabin called these questions “a wink to our consumer, because we know that often she gets asked that question.”

 

The spot brings in the brand’s history by switching to shots of women reading a book bearing an image of Madam C.J. Walker. “We’re locking down the legacy,” says the voiceover.

 

The brand sees the Gen Z consumer as more diverse and more willing to experiment with their hair, said Sabin, partly because of social media offering more opportunities for learning. The pandemic has also prompted consumers to become more involved with their haircare.

 

Wil Shelton, CEO of Wil Power Integrated Marketing, which specializes in marketing ethnic personal care products, said one challenge is navigating how Unilever’s acquisition of Sundial Brands might have changed consumer perceptions. Acquisitions can cause people to think that the brand has changed, said Shelton, even when this isn’t the case. As a result, the brand should focus on transparency and letting customers know that they “still have the same mission, the same authenticity,” said Shelton, who isn't affiliated with the brand.

 

The acquisition could also continue to prompt conversations among consumers about the pros and cons of supporting Black-led versus Black-owned companies, said Shelton. When big conglomerates acquire a Black-owned brand, consumers can “feel like you’re diluting the brand’s authenticity,” he said.

 

Unilever has a history with moves towards racial justice, but the company has also dealt with some controversy after releasing an ad for Dove in 2017 that was criticized as racist because it showed a Black woman taking off a brown shirt to reveal a white woman.

 

Sundial Brands was also perceived by some as moving away from its African-American base after producing a commercial in 2017 for Shea Moisture that showed white women using its haircare products.

 

The new campaign is digital-only, which is what Sundial usually focuses on, and includes spots on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, as well as specific partnerships with Black-owned media such as Afropunk. The products will only be sold at Walmart, which partnered with Sundial brands for the campaign.

 

The Walmart partnership has the potential to put these products in close “proximity to where their consumers are,” said Shelton.

 

This campaign will be the brand’s biggest campaign, said Sabin; it hasn’t had a campaign since Sundial Brands was acquired by Unilever in 2017. “It really just feels like a brand new launch,” said Sabin.

15696: Unilever And Dove Cry, “Black Hair Matters!”

 

Advertising Age spotlighted the latest patronizing propaganda from Dove—and the report’s opening paragraph underscored the ignorance and hypocrisy:

 

“A new study from Unilever’s Dove has uncovered startling findings with respect to Black girls—from as early as the age of five, they experience hair-based discrimination at schools. That statistic comes to life in a heart-tugging new spot from Ogilvy and Swift.”

 

Okay, here’s a breakdown of the ignorance and hypocrisy.

 

First, why conduct a study to uncover common knowledge? Answer: Because Unilever and Dove are culturally clueless.

 

Second, why label the findings as “startling”? Answer: Because Unilever, Dove and Advertising Age are culturally clueless.

 

Third, why assign such a project to White advertising agency Ogilvy? Answer: Because Unilever and Dove are hypocritical piles of shit.

 

Fourth, why did White advertising agency Ogilvy partner with Swift? Answer: Because Unilever, Dove and Ogilvy (having abandoned OgilvyCulture long ago) are culturally clueless and hypocritical piles of shit.

 

Fifth, why does Swift boast about being female-founded and female-run with women comprising 80% of leadership, staffed by BIPOC-identifying workers comprising 40% of the team and certified by The 3% Movement? Answer: Because the Portland-based shop can leverage such data points to land gigs with Unilever, Dove and Ogilvy—plus, get promotional PR from Ad Age.

 

Sixth, this blog has been unimpressed by Dove since it launched the Real Beauty campaign—for reasons detailed in this 2005 post. If anyone needs further evidence that Dove’s campaign is thoroughly unoriginal, check this out. No, really, check this out now.

 

Finally, there’s no doubt that Unilever, Dove, Ogilvy and Swift will take full advantage of pumping the pathetic poop during Black History Month.

 

Dove Study Finds That Girls As Young As Five Experience Race-Based Hair Discrimination

 

Brand’s latest Crown Coalition effort includes emotional ad from Ogilvy and Swift following one girl’s disheartening hair journey

 

By Ann-Christine Diaz

 

A new study from Unilever’s Dove has uncovered startling findings with respect to Black girls—from as early as the age of five, they experience hair-based discrimination at schools. That statistic comes to life in a heart-tugging new spot from Ogilvy and Swift.

 

The ad follows one young woman’s hair journey through the years, opening on a scene of her as a girl. Her father lovingly spends time styling her hair in braids, only to see her turned away at school because her hairstyle doesn’t fit into the “strict hair policy.” In high school, her teacher cautions her against wearing braids during graduation, and as a young adult, she bolts out of a job interview when she sees that her bantu knots fall into the “banned” hairstyles at the company.

 

It ends on an uplifting note, however, with the young girl’s voiceover saying, “My dad always told me I should fight for my hair. So I am.”

 

The spot is the latest in Dove’s efforts supporting The Crown Coalition, the organization it established in 2019 alongside National Urban League, Color of Change and the Center of Western Law and Poverty in an effort to end race-based hair discrimination.

 

The new research, “Dove 2021 Crown Research Study for Girls,” found that 53% of Black mothers said their daughters experienced hair discrimination. Some of those experiences began as early as the age of five. The study also found that approximately 86% of Black teens who endured hair discrimination did so by the age of 12, while 100% of Black elementary school girls in majority-white schools who said they experienced hair bias said they did so by the age of 10.

 

Dove had co-founded The Crown Coalition following its previous research that uncovered how Black women are 1.5 times more likely to be sent home from work because of their hairstyles. It also found that Black women were 80% more likely to change their natural hair to “fit” into their workplace.

 

Since its founding, The Crown Coalition has been fighting to pass The Crown Act, local and federal legislation demanding protection against such discrimination at work and in schools. Currently, only 14 states (CA, CT, CO, DE, IL, MD, NE, NM, OR, NY, NJ, NV, VA, WA) and 34 municipalities have laws against race-based hair discrimination.

 

As part of its inclusive hair efforts, Dove also recently debuted its new “Hair Love” line of products. It was inspired by the Oscar-winning and Dove-backed short created by filmmaker Matthew Cherry, a Crown Act advocate.

 

“This new body of research illuminates the pervasive nature and deep impact hair discrimination has on Black girls highlighting the horrific multi-generational impact of narrow beauty standards in America,” said Esi Eggleston Bracey, EVP and chief operating officer Unilever North America, in a statement. “These biases continue to perpetuate unfair scrutiny and discrimination against Black women and girls for wearing hairstyles inherent to our culture. This is unacceptable and why it is imperative that everyone join the movement to make hair discrimination illegal nationwide through the passage of The Crown Act.”

 

Consumers can sign a petition and see more information on The Crown Act at Dove.com/Crown.