Unilever Indonesia: selling sustainability to price sensitive consumers

Learning outcomes Case overview/synopsis This case examines the tension between consumer attitudes and purchasing behaviour toward sustainable products in Indonesia, one of the world’s largest and most complex emerging markets. The organisational setting is PT Unilever Indonesia Tbk, a fast-moving consumer goods company; the case focuses on its Home Care division and covers the period from 2019–2024, with the decision point set at a quarterly strategy review in March 2025. The protagonist (the division’s Marketing Director, a pseudonymous composite character) must recommend, within thirty days, one of three strategic pathways: (A) a premium focus on affluent urban Green Pioneers; (B) value-based expansion toward price parity for mass market Pragmatic Adopters; or (C) a partnership-based approach with government and non-governmental organisations to reach rural and low-income consumers. Despite 79% of Indonesian consumers expressing willingness to pay premium prices for sustainable products, actual adoption remained below 25% in urban areas and below 10 percent in rural regions (Rakuten Insight, 2024), while Indonesia’s middle class contracted from 21.45% to 17.13% of the population between 2019 and 2024 (BPS-Statistics Indonesia, 2024). The case is designed for teaching in international marketing, consumer behaviour, sustainability management and emerging-market strategy. The case narrative itself, consistent with EMCS convention, presents evidence and dilemma without explicit theory; this teaching note analyses the case through the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) and the Value Belief Norm Theory (Stern, 2000). Complexity academic level MBA students; Masters-level students in international marketing or sustainability management; and executive-education participants with managerial experience in multinational or emerging-market contexts. The level of difficulty is moderate to high; students should have completed foundational coursework in marketing, in particular segmentation, targeting and positioning. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing.