March 2025. In a conference room in London, Fernando Fernandez sat across from Warren Ackerman. Ackerman is no journalist, no critic, no blogger. He's head of European Consumer Staples Research at Barclays — the British investment bank ranking among the largest financial institutions in Europe. When Ackerman publishes a report on Nestlé, Procter & Gamble or Unilever, pension funds, hedge funds and institutional investors around the world read along. His verdict can move billions. Just to say: it was an important conversation.
Sitting across from him was a man who had just been appointed CEO of Unilever. An Argentine, economist by training, at the company since 1988, and before that CFO. That last detail matters: it's the Chief Financial Officer who guards the numbers, defends the margins, takes the nonsense out of budgets.
The company he took over is no ordinary player. Unilever is one of the largest FMCG groups in the world, active in more than 190 countries, with over 400 brands in its portfolio. Chances are at least five of them are sitting in your cupboard, bathroom or fridge right now: Dove, Axe, Knorr, Hellmann's, Ben & Jerry's. And that's before we mention Rexona, Lipton, Magnum, Cif, Persil or Vaseline.
A calculated decision
His message was clear. "Today, brands are — by definition and by default — received with scepticism when their messages come directly from companies." Not the marketing departments, not the TV spots, not the glossy campaigns. The voices that matter, the ones that move us to action, according to Fernandez, are those of others.
And it didn't stop at words. Fernandez shifted 50% of his marketing budget to social and influencer marketing — up from roughly 30%. The number of creators they work with went up 20-fold. By the end of 2025, they were already at nearly 300,000.
Think about what that means. A marketer shouting that everything should go into influencers is predictable — they've been shouting that for years. But this isn't a marketer. This is an ex-CFO who keeps a hand on the purse strings and defends the margins, and who, as his first big move as CEO, announces a radical reallocation of the marketing budget. In front of a room full of analysts and investors. This isn't a creative ego talking. This is a calculated decision.
The first results
A year later, the first results are coming in. Q1 2026: 3.8% sales growth, of which 2.9% is volume growth. That last figure matters most — volume is harder to fake than revenue. It shows that more people are actually buying more products, not just that prices went up.
The campaigns are also producing concrete stories. Knorr (of the bouillon cubes and sauces) launched #UnlockYourGreenFlag, a dating campaign built on the insight that 93% of Gen Z sees cooking as the ultimate green flag on a dating profile. Knorr worked with 284 cooking and dating experts across 29 markets and seven languages. The result: 700 million impressions, 865,000 influencer posts, 12 million singles engaging with it. In Italy, South Africa and the Philippines, real-life dating events were even organised, with 80% of attendees going home with a date. The Vaseline campaign #VaselineVerified, where scientists tested viral beauty hacks, delivered a 43% sales increase for the brand.
What this means for the wider market
When Unilever moves, the whole market moves with it. According to The Drum, micro-influencer rates have risen by around 30% since the announcement. General Mills, Gap and other giants are accelerating their strategies. Budgets are shifting en masse away from traditional TV channels toward TikTok and Instagram Reels.
In the Benelux, we see the same pattern. Specialised short-form agencies are growing fast — think Fullsend in Antwerp, official TikTok creative partner, or Amsterdam-based Aidem. These niche players won't replace the big networks — they'll exist alongside them, as specialist whip-partners who master their discipline. On the other side, the established networks are integrating influence into their offering: Dentsu launched Dentsu Influence, a model that brings creators, media, culture and performance into one system instead of treating influencer marketing as a stand-alone campaign layer.
But let's put the numbers in perspective
300,000 influencers sounds enormous. Until you do the math. Unilever operates in more than 190 countries, with more than 400 brands — of which 30 "Power Brands" account for 75% of revenue. Do the calculation: 300,000 divided across 190 countries and 30 Power Brands works out to roughly 50 influencers per brand per country, on average.
For Belgium and the Netherlands, that means: a handful of creators per Power Brand. A Dove influencer here, a Knorr creator there, an Axe face somewhere else. Spread across the entire Benelux and all language regions.
Critics also point out that measurability remains a challenge — how do you know exactly which individual creator contributed to which in-store sale? And as the market saturates, consumer scepticism grows about the "fakeness" of paid authenticity.
Where Sunday Squad fits into this story
The direction Unilever is taking — away from the company that talks at you, toward the people you trust — is the same direction we built Sunday Squad around.
A more well-known influencer-celebrity — sometimes the line is very thin — works for some brands. A Squad works for others. And often, a combination works best. What makes a Squad unique: a group of 25+ sportfluencers posting simultaneously in the same community creates something individual creators can't deliver — local anchoring and saturation within a time window.
We don't believe this replaces the media entirely — we believe it shifts. Hero moments via big names, daily visibility via the mass, and targeted community-driven activations via Squads. Each layer does something different, each has its own added value. As always, the mix determines the success.
What we do believe: in the niches where we're active — running, cycling, triathlon, fitness — concentration within a community is more valuable than spreading across it. A Squad of 25 runners who follow each other and post about the same brand at the same time does more for a brand than five random nano-runners spread across the country.
When recycled CFOs start dictating the move, then someone is really shaking the tree.
PS: we did manage to write this article without mentioning the abbreviation for artificial intelligence. 😉