Case Study: Unilever achieves real-time, high-precision rural market and competitor insights in Colombia with Latana

How Unilever used Latana to track the growth of a key competitor to Dove in rural Colombia

Unilever’s Dove brand needed better, cost-effective brand insights in Colombia, where traditional panels skewed to Bogotá and missed roughly 80% of the population in rural areas. Faced with complex segmentation needs (hair type, dandruff experience, purchase decision roles, treatment use) and limited budget for tier-two markets, Unilever partnered with Latana for more representative, timely brand tracking and custom segmentation.

Latana deployed a mobile-optimized, interactive survey delivered via ad networks—targeting over 50% of ads to rural areas—and collected 32,000 answers from 3,400 people monthly across 2,000 apps. Using multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) Latana produced subgroup estimates with margins of error below 3%, delivered monthly updates that let Unilever react to a 5% drop in brand consideration, and monitor the rapid market entry of competitor NutriBella15, demonstrating improved rural reach, high-precision niche insights, and faster response to market shifts.

Unilever