Social-first is a strategy. Not a default

Published: March 9, 2026

When Unilever CEO, Fernando Fernandez, declared that “the time of big corporate big brand messages are gone” and announced a pivot to a “social-first demand model,” it sent a ripple through the industry.

The move is significant. Unilever is one of the world’s largest advertisers, investing in billions annually in brand and marketing. Reallocating the share of media investment to creators and social channels is not a tactical adjustment - it’s a philosophical repositioning. It so happens when an advertiser of that scale signals a philosophy shift, the market listens.

But the temptation is to treat a move like this as a new rule. It isn’t.

“Social-first” is a strategy, not a default setting. For some brands, it’s absolutely the right engine for demand. For others, it’s a costly distraction from what actually drives growth: broad reach, availability, and repeated exposure across decision-making environments.

There is no denying that creators have become powerful engines of demand. Unilever isn’t alone in leaning into social; “50% of marketers now say creators are a must-have investment.” Ideas are tested in real time. Social platforms shorten feedback loops, surface cultural traction, and reveal what resonates with their viewers in real-time. Instead of waiting weeks for a post-campaign analysis, brands can see momentum (or lack thereof) within days.

But signal is not scale.

The question isn’t whether social works. It is whether social should sit at the center of the growth system for every brand.

For brands built on cultural relevance and high-frequency consideration, social can be a primary driver of discovery and demand. But many categories don’t behave that way. Low-frequency purchases, regulated or trust-led categories, habit-driven products are reached by light and future buyers, not by deepening engagement among existing fans. In those cases, “social-first” can over-index on the loudest signals and under-invest in the quieter work of reach and memory building.

Consumers don’t experience media in silos. They move fluidly between streaming platforms, mobile apps, retail environments, live events, commuting corridors, and outdoor spaces throughout the day. Attention is fragmented, memory is built through repetition across contexts, and conversion often follows multiple exposures across multiple screens.

If social becomes the leading intelligence layer, the operational requirement becomes clear: brands must be able to translate what they learn into scaled distribution quickly and cohesively, without rebuilding the plan from scratch every time the signal shifts.

That requires infrastructure.

It requires flexible media buying that allows budgets to shift mid-flight, creative builds to adapt across formats and environments, cross-channel measurement that connects exposure to business outcomes, and coordination between digital and physical touchpoints, rather than treating them as separate strategies.

Creators can spark interest and credibility. Video and CTV can extend and reinforce messaging at scale. Real-world media can establish presence beyond the feed, building salience in the places people actually move through. Performance layers can connect exposure to measurable action. Each channel plays a different role in the growth system. The advantage comes from orchestration, not the elevation of one channel over the others.

Marketing history offers a consistent lesson. Every cycle produces a new “center of gravity” channel: television, search, social, performance. Early momentum drives over-concentration. Eventually, returns normalize and strategies rebalance. The brands that sustain growth are rarely the ones that commit entirely to a single-channel philosophy. They’re the ones that build adaptable systems capable of learning quickly and scaling intelligently.

Unilever’s shift reflects the growing importance of social in shaping demand. The more useful takeaway isn’t “everyone should go social-first.” It’s that social has become a powerful signal source—and the brands that win will be the ones that can operationalize that signal across a broader, cross-screen strategy.

In 2026, competitive advantage won’t come from declaring one channel the future. It will come from choosing the right center of gravity for your category and your customer and building a system where channels inform each other, amplify each other, and ultimately drive measurable growth across every screen that matters.

Written By: Julia Cramer

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