Groundswell

What we can know from example of Unilever

Unilever's example to incorporate the three elements of groundswell thinking into your organization:

• Take small steps that have big impact. The Dove team initiated a series of campaigns that were revolutionary in one area - innovating on the message with the Campaign For Real Beauty, listening go of message control with The Apprentice, and rethinking distribution with the "Evolution" video. The key was that they all had measurable success metrics that were tied to key marketing goals. These primed the pump for the more innovative, more challenging campaigns that came next
• Have a vision and a plan. Transformational thinking can be maddeningly slow. Rob and Babs demonstrated tremendous patience in getting executives to take small steps forward - in all, two year passed between the launch of the Campaign For Real Beauty and the "Evolution" video. But both Rob and Baba personally had a vision of Unilever's potential with groundswell thinking, a vision that kept them going through the rough patches. You should have in your mind a tree-year outlook of where you want to take the organization - and the simplest way to do that is to describe what the relationship with your customer will feel like in the future. 
• Build leaders into the plan. It took leaders like Rob and Babs to have the guts to take Unilever all the way to the top. The Dove team was relentless in hammering on one point - the need to let go and embrace emerging media and give the consumer a voice in the brand. Rob and Babs shared this vision and backed it up with persuasive and planning skills to drive innovative marketing to another level.