Brands
Unilever to cut ties with digital influencers
MUMBAI: While brands continue to engage in paid promotions through influencer marketing, consumer goods giant Unilever’s had enough. The world’s second biggest advertiser has decided to stop this practice to promote its products. Companies tend to rely on influencers to generate a buzz around their products on social media. But more often than not, followers of these influencers aren’t real people but fake accounts and bots.
Hence, Unilever, maker of Sunsilk shampoo, Dove and Lipton tea, wants to help make advertising more transparent and will cut ties with all digital influencers. Unilever spent US $8.9 billion on marketing last year.
The company’s chief marketing officer Keith Weed is said to pledge today at the on-going Cannes Lions that Unilever will never buy followers or work with influencers who buy followers.
“Trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback, and we could very quickly see the whole influencer space be undermined. There are lots of great influencers out there, but there are a few bad apples spoiling the barrel and the trouble is, everyone goes down once the trust is undermined,” Weed told Reuters.
It was only recently that Unilever threatened Facebook and Google that it will withdraw its advertising on the social media platforms if they fail to remove content that creates division in the society and promotes hate. Weed had said at the time, “As one of the largest advertisers in the world, we cannot have an environment where our consumers don’t trust what they see online.”
The move also comes as Unilever and Procter & Gamble are in the process of auditing their ad spends and agency relationship to function more efficiently as the industry sale for consumer packed goods has witnessed a drop. To cut down on the advertising and marketing costs, these multinational brands are now working with fewer agencies while creating some of the campaigns in-house rather than spending millions on an ad agency.
According to a report by Rakuten Marketing, some UK advertisers were willing to pay US$100,000 to celebrity influencers for a single Facebook post whereas a micro influencer with followers as low as 10,0000 earns as much as 15000 pounds for a single post.
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Brands
Trump announces $300bn Texas oil refinery with Reliance, calls it the biggest in US history
First new US refinery in 50 years planned at Brownsville port with Reliance
WASHINGTON: The United States may soon see the first brand-new oil refinery built on its soil in half a century.
Donald Trump announced a proposed $300 billion refinery project in Texas, calling it a landmark moment for American energy production and jobs.
Posting on Truth Social on 10 March, Trump said the facility would be built at the Port of Brownsville and developed by a company called America First Refining, with major investment from India’s Reliance Industries.
The announcement frames the project as a centrepiece of the administration’s push for “energy dominance”, with Trump claiming it would deliver thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity to South Texas.
If realised, the plant would mark the first all-new major refinery constructed in the United States since the 1970s. In recent decades, oil companies have largely chosen to expand existing facilities rather than build new ones, citing high costs, regulatory hurdles and environmental scrutiny.
Trump described the proposed investment as the “biggest in US history”, positioning it as proof that policy changes such as streamlined permits and lower taxes are drawing large-scale energy investments back into the country.
The refinery is planned for the Port of Brownsville, a strategic Gulf Coast location that provides easy access to shipping routes and export markets.
A key partner in the project is Reliance Industries, controlled by billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani. The company already runs the world’s largest refining complex in Jamnagar, India, making it one of the most experienced operators in large-scale petroleum processing.
The Texas venture would mark a significant step for the group into America’s domestic refining sector, potentially strengthening industrial ties between the US and India.
The proposed refinery is being promoted as a next-generation facility capable of processing American shale oil while maintaining high environmental standards. Trump said it would be “the cleanest refinery in the world”, although the specific technologies behind that claim have not yet been detailed.
Industry observers also note that the $300 billion figure is unusually large for a refinery project, and analysts are waiting for more clarity on whether the number reflects total construction costs, long-term infrastructure investment, or broader economic impact estimates.
As of 11 March, Reliance Industries had not publicly confirmed the investment size or the structure of its involvement.
For now, the announcement has sparked equal parts excitement and curiosity in energy markets. If the plan moves from promise to pouring concrete, the refinery could reshape the Gulf Coast energy landscape, and reopen a chapter in American refining that has been quiet for nearly fifty years.
