HUL boosts influencer spends 40%, hits 12,000 collabs in FY2025

New Delhi: Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has expanded its digital marketing arsenal, reporting a 40% surge in influencer marketing spends in FY2024-25. 

The FMCG major executed over 12,000 influencer collaborations across its portfolio, underscoring a sharp pivot to social-first strategies to build deeper consumer connections.

The announcement came during HUL’s annual performance highlights presentation, where top executives Rohit Jawa and Ritesh Tiwari positioned this move as part of the company’s broader focus on future-proofing brand engagement. 

“In FY25, we significantly ramped up our digital media investments to drive social-first demand generation and amplified our influencer spends by circa 40%,” said Ritesh Tiwari, Executive Director, Finance and IT and CFO at HUL, noting the impact this has had on brand engagement and digital awareness.

Hindustan Unilever has also confirmed that 40% of its advertising budget is now dedicated to digital platforms. “Our focus is on channels of the future, and that includes a deliberate shift to influencer-driven content and commerce,” said Chairman Nitin Paranjpe during the company’s 92nd Annual General Meeting. 

For context, HUL’s total advertising expenditure stood at Rs 6,199 crore in FY2025, underlining the scale of its digital transformation.

The influencer push is deeply intertwined with HUL’s new ASPIRE strategy, built on three pillars: Focus, Excel, and Accelerate. This strategy segments the company’s portfolio into ‘core’, ‘future core’, and ‘market maker’ brands, with sharper resource allocation to fuel faster growth in high-opportunity areas. 

Influencer marketing has been particularly instrumental in propelling ‘future core’ and ‘market maker’ categories, especially those aligned with premiumisation, wellness, and emerging consumer cultures, said the HUL leaders.

HUL’s influencer-led brand storytelling also saw strong festive success. One example was the Moti soap brand’s “Din Din Diwali” campaign, which aimed to preserve the cultural ritual of Abhyanga Snan among new-age consumers. The campaign amassed over 150 million views, with the brand clocking one of its highest-ever growths in market share during the festive period.

Another illustrative case was Knorr’s Korean range of noodles, which collaborated with Netflix’s Squid Game Season 2 to tap into India’s growing interest in Korean content and cuisine. The partnership helped Knorr position itself culturally among Gen Z consumers, further reinforcing HUL’s social-first approach.

Beyond influencers, the company’s digital thrust extended to e-commerce and retail innovations. HUL nearly doubled its product assortment on quick commerce platforms to meet evolving demand and customised its route-to-market across 125,000+ speciality stores, said CEO Jawa.

The influencer activation scale, spanning micro, macro, and celebrity creators, has become a key lever to maintain brand superiority under what HUL terms its “unmissable brand framework.” 

With consumer habits rapidly shifting online, especially among Gen Z and younger millennials, HUL’s aggressive influencer playbook is expected to be a central force in accelerating its future-facing categories and driving sustained competitive growth.