Unilever partners with Alibaba Cloud for marketing intelligence

Unilever has partnered with Alibaba Cloud, the infrastructure-as-a-service outfit behind Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba Group, to power its digital marketing initiatives.

The deal sees the multinational consumer goods company able to optimise its omni-channel, online and offline demand generation activities using Alibaba Cloud’s artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-based technologies.

Alibaba Cloud’s solutions are geared toward unlocking detailed insights into Unilever’s customer buying patterns and behaviour. The Alibaba Cloud data intelligence can feed into consumer insight for targeted digital marketing campaigns, to adapt to changing customer buying habits across multiple platforms and optimise its route to market and supply chain planning.

Commenting on the new partnership, Unilever China VP data and digital, Fang Jun, said customer intelligence is needed given customer buying patterns are constantly changing. "When and where they buy has caused marketing to become even more agile and precise in order to stay relevant and reduce marketing waste," he said. 

Alibaba Cloud offers data intelligence tools, utilising machine learning and AI, for information processing, real-time analytics and business analysis to spot customer and market patterns.

“For marketers to keep on top of customers’ ever-changing needs and habits, the ability to understand their shopping habits is essential for keeping the brand messaging relevant for each customer,” said Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, president of international business, Selina Yuan.

The Unilever and Alibaba Cloud collaboration was announced at the Alibaba Cloud Global Summit, in which ‘China Gateway 2.0’ was launched. The program, which includes Unilever, aims to help Alibaba Cloud’s partners and customers accelerate their growth in China by capitalising Alibaba Cloud’s local business expertise, technologies and matured ecosystem.

“Alibaba Cloud’s solutions have the ability to unlock the customer insights needed, and are set to ensure Unilever continues to succeed and build brand loyalty with its customers amid a constantly evolving and complex market place,” Yuan said.

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