The Challenge

Formulated in 1870, Vaseline® is a globally recognized skincare brand. With over 150 years of healing dry skin, the "Wonder Jelly" faced the challenge of delivering impactful innovation relevant to evolving consumer needs.

As social media and the broader beauty industry saw emerging trends, Vaseline had a choice: follow existing brand approaches or forge a new path by collaborating directly with the content creators and trendsetters. 

So, how could a century-old icon innovate beyond fleeting social media trends and break through the noise?

The Solution

By leveraging the Vurvey Labs platform, Vaseline transcended conventional social listening, embracing full co-creation with consumers, influencers, and beauty experts. This direct access empowered CMI teams to not only investigate nascent trends such as "slugging" but also to uncover the myriad inventive ways consumers already integrated Vaseline into their daily routines. 

Consumers shared impactful narratives, insights, and concepts with the Vaseline and broader Beauty & Well-being teams, ranging from incorporating Vaseline into nighttime rituals to utilizing it for calming cystic acne. This offered an intimate view into why Vaseline held significance in their everyday lives and the innovative methods they employed its uses. 

Bolstered by these insights and the collaborative experience with beauty consumers, the Unilever team collaborated with Ogilvy, Singapore, to conceive the acclaimed "Vaseline Verified" campaign.

The brand leveraged the authority of its scientists and dermatologists to empower consumers, celebrating their creativity and verifying their "hacks." This approach created an entirely new value platform without adding a single new item to their product shelf, demonstrating how to move at the speed of culture.

Christina Habib, Unilever’s Chief Insight Officer, joined Vurvey Labs’ founder onstage at the Cannes Lions 2025 to share her insights about this new way of working.

"Vurvey is embedded throughout all of our decision-making across the entire business, not just the brands. It's a key engine to our innovation, short-term and long-term, and a key engine to our digital marketing creative ideas… All of our brand teams can co-create with real people in real time, every day, with all of the personas for our different brands. Imagine the power of that at your fingertips. It's indispensable."

— Christina Habib Chief Insights Officer, Unilever on 3CV Stage Cannes Lions

The Impact

Vaseline's "Vaseline Verified" campaign, a Grand Prix and Titanium winner at Cannes Lion 2025, redefined innovation by prioritizing community-led validation over top-down product creation. Instead of developing new products for every trend, Vaseline chose to listen, amplify, and build trust. The campaign achieved significant results:

• Cannes Lions Health and Wellness Grand Prix and Titanium Winner

• 43% monthly sales growth after launch

• Over 6.5 million organically initiated conversations around the brand

• 1 billion social interactions

• 87% positive sentiment

This co-creation model transformed Vaseline's innovation process, driving desire-led growth and setting a new benchmark for human-centric AI in marketing by amplifying human creativity rather than merely automating tasks.

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