Fast, Fresh, Fearless. Unilever’s Sketch Pro AI Power Play for Home Care Creativity

By The Malketeer

In an age where micro-trends come and go in the time it takes to do a load of laundry, Unilever is flipping the creative script for its Home Care brands.

The global FMCG giant has just launched Sketch Pro, a cutting-edge in-house AI-powered design platform poised to redefine how household brands engage consumers—one asset at a time.

Co-developed with IPG Studios, Sketch Pro is not just another shiny tech toy.

It’s a full-fledged centre of excellence for graphic design—fuelled by a robust mix of Large Language Models (LLMs), Adobe Firefly, and Google’s Veo3.

And it’s already turbocharging creativity across brands like Persil/Omo, Comfort, Cif, and Domestos.

What’s groundbreaking here isn’t just the tech—it’s the speed.

Concepts that once took weeks now take hours.

With Sketch Pro, Unilever’s creative teams can ideate, generate, and test consumer-facing assets in as little as two hours.

That’s up to 3x faster than traditional design workflows, a game-changer in a category historically shackled by linear TV-led timelines.

In short, Unilever isn’t waiting for culture anymore—it’s co-creating it in real time.

From Laundry Room to Living Room: A Social-First Revolution

The real brilliance of Sketch Pro lies in how it enables a social-first storytelling model, something previously rare in the Home Care segment.

Instead of top-down messaging dictated by brands, creative ideas can now mirror the cultural moment—flexible, fast, and feedback-driven.

Whether it’s reacting to an Oscar nomination in Brazil or jumping on a TikTok trend in Indonesia, Unilever’s global teams are using Sketch Pro to stay agile and hyper-local.

• In Jakarta, content created for Rinso and Sunlight through Sketch Pro saw a 22.5% spike in TikTok engagement, pulling in over 6 million organic views.
• In São Paulo, a moment-driven campaign featuring actress Fernanda Torres led to Meta media assets that not only resonated culturally but also cut production costs by 4%.
• And in London, the birthplace of Sketch Pro, teams churned out 30+ design concepts at 7x the previous speed, transforming how brand storytelling is ideated and executed.

Scaling Up Without Selling Out

Unilever’s ambitions are bold.

The company plans to roll out Sketch Pro to 21 markets by 2026, with Istanbul, Durban, and Shanghai up next.

But for all the tech wizardry, there’s a grounded caution coming from inside the company.

As Mario Dughi, Unilever’s Global Marketing Director, remarked during the Brand Innovators panel at SXSW London:

“Before you use any AI tools, really think—what do consumers want? What do consumers expect from our brands? AI can magnify that message, but it cannot be AI first and last.”

His sentiment underscores a growing truth in today’s marketing ecosystem: AI is the enabler, not the driver.

Creativity, empathy, and cultural relevance still demand the human touch.

The Malaysian Takeaway: Reimagining Home Care for the TikTok Age

For Malaysian marketers watching this play out, the implications are profound.

The Home Care category—long relegated to predictable formats and conservative timelines—is being reborn as a playground for agile content, real-time engagement, and culturally tuned-in creativity.

Unilever’s move isn’t just about better design.

It’s about transforming a legacy category into a living, breathing part of everyday digital life.

And for brands across Southeast Asia, this signals a wake-up call: if detergent can dance to the tune of TikTok, what’s stopping you?

The race to create meaningful, memorable, and moment-ready marketing has a new blueprint. And it’s being drawn—at speed—by Sketch Pro.

AI may be the brush, but human creativity remains the artist.

The brands that thrive will be those who use both in harmony.