The rider and the elephant: How Unilever uses semiotics to drive in-store sales

Brian Carruthers

There’s a tension between retail efficiency and retail effectiveness – a gap that, in part, is down to prioritising corporate logistics over how people really shop.

“What we see is often that retail is driving the speed of replenishment. It’s easier for the staff to replenish because the shelves are all in a straight line, but it doesn’t actually make it any easier to shop,” Keith Sleight, CMI Director Shopping Insights at Unilever, told a Retail Week Live audience (May 2022).

What he’s looking for is “perfect shopping”, which, ultimately, means selling more. “We need higher conversion. We want the...

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