Mondelez hopes to twist social success into ecommerce success

Mondelez International, the reincarnated spin-off of Kraft Foods, is a pro at creative ideas and execution. Its Oreo brand became a social media sensation during its centennial Daily Twist campaign, which combined top-notch photography and big news moments to create viral photos like the Gay Pride cookie and Mars Rover cookie. Oreo’s famous “dunk in the dark” social media post during the power outage at the 2013 Super Bowl had brands across the world scurrying to create war rooms for their own real-time marketing programs.

But Mondelez is more than Oreo, and it has more on its cookie plate than social media success.  While the company sits strong with eight billion-dollar brands including Cadbury, Milka, and Oreo, it faces pressure from a changing retail environment. Shoppers are migrating online and leaving behind the supermarket center aisles that have traditionally been the backbone of consumer packaged goods (CPG) sales.

Mondelez is prioritizing ecommerce, announcing a goal to hit $1 billion in direct ecommerce sales by 2020. That’s a 10x increase over its current $100 million annual online sales but only 3 percent of the company’s annual sales.

How will Mondelez disrupt itself and its already strong sales? Dana Anderson, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Mondelez, is finding ideas and inspiration from tech startups. She recognizes Mondelez as “an 800-pound gorilla living in a unicorn world” and encourages dialog between mature companies and startups  to understand how tech can foster growth.

Anderson was listed as one of Forbes’ 50 Most Influential CMOs of 2014 and as one of Ad Age’s 100 Most Influential Women in Advertising in 2012. You can see her speak on the topic of convergence in marketing at the upcoming February 22 Marketing.FWD Summit.

In the same way you’d impulse-buy a candy bar while waiting in the supermarket checkout line, Mondelez would like you to impulse-buy snack food while hanging out on digital channels. That requires rethinking the customer journey and path to purchase, and in 2015, the company announced three programs to help them do that.

Through its program Shopper Futures, Mondelez has selected eight startups to team up with retailers and Mondelez brands to create in-market pilot programs in 90 days. Mondelez has renewed its partnership with Facebook to create video that drives online snack purchases. It also announced a partnership with ChannelSight to place Buy buttons across web, social, video, CRM, and other digital touchpoints to connect to more than 130 retailer websites.

Currently with 42 million Facebook fans, Oreo continues to push the edges of omnichannel creativity. During the March 2015 solar eclipse, Oreo created a video billboard in London that showed an Oreo cookie emulating the eclipse, timed with the movement of the sun itself. This #OreoEclipse campaign was supported by a cover wrap on the UK tabloid The Sun and, of course, plenty of social media activity.

But can Mondelez twist its creative chops into ecommerce success? Time will tell, but the company seems to have the right tools and mindset in place. Hear from Anderson at Marketing.FWD Summit on February 22 in New York City. Register now!