Mumbai: From Cadbury’s iconic dancing girl on the cricket field in 1993, to a campaign that lets you generate a song for your loved one using artificial intelligence (AI) tools, Mondelez has successfully cemented its iconic chocolate brand in the Indian consumer’s mind. Now, with a premium portfolio spanning Oreo, Bournvita, Halls, and more recently, the very viral Lotus Biscoff biscuits, the company hopes to drive growth on both ends—increased premiumization on the top, and more penetration in rural markets. Nitin Saini, vice-president - marketing at Mondelez India, talks to Mint about the unique challenges that this ambition throws up. Edited excerpts:
Q. First things first, the IPL season is on. What are you doing with cricket this year?
This time, we are doing a thematic kind of an activation for the IPL. So we are celebrating people who watch the cricket match for the first time, the idea being to celebrate the feeling of watching your very first match. For many ads in these tournaments, there is very little connection with cricket itself. With this campaign, we are not just running an ad campaign, we are doing some on-ground activation as well so that we can elevate the experience of people going to watch a match in person. So, it's not just storytelling, like in terms of advertising, but also how you can actually enable those people to have a great experience.
Q. Have things changed in the way you measure the long-term gains you get from advertising with big, expensive properties such as the IPL?
We look at several metrics. For example, has your spontaneous awareness gone up? How is the top-of-mind share for your brand? Then there are long-term measures to see how much the love for the brand has increased. Then, to determine long-term return on investment, we do something called a mixed-marketing model. That helps us evaluate the various marketing levers at play at any given time to decide what is working and what isn’t. In the end, You should be able to see more talk about your brand, more people wanting to buy you and more people remembering you at the right place at the right time. [Something like IPL] is not just about reach for reach’s sake, but how do you build a real kind of strong connection with people.
Q. What about the use of AI in marketing? Everyone seems to be in a rush to deploy some sort of big AI tool in their marketing campaigns.
We started to work with AI in our marketing long before AI was cool. In 2021, we did a campaign for local kirana stores back in 2021. Then in 2023, we had another activation which let you create a personalised birthday song. For us, the idea central to the campaign is more important than the idea of using AI. We are always thinking about how to use AI in an interesting way.
Q. Premiumization as a trend is still heavily on the rise, yet Mondelez has been talking for some time about driving rural penetration as well. What do you see changing among your rural customers?
We see the premiumization trend across town classes; it is not just in the metros. Among some classes, we see consumers looking for more sophisticated premium experiences. For them, we try to do very interesting stuff around Silk, which is our premium chocolate brand.
In rural markets, our priority is driving penetration and relevance for the chocolate category. In these markets, our lead brand would be Dairy Milk, and here is where we sell our low unit price portfolio or LUPs. Even with a brand like Oreo, which is premium, if you make it available at a ₹10 price point, there is enough opportunity for that kind of play as well in rural India.
I think the ₹5 and ₹10 price points are very important to drive penetration. Put together, they are really big for driving biscuits growth, although over the decades, in chocolates the price points have migrated above to higher prices. But for any snacking category, these price points are very important.
Q. What about marketing channels? What still drives salience in rural markets?
First, television still drives salience. But even digital reach in rural is quite good. The third initiative we have is we try to reach out to rural markets through our digitally generated murals or wall paintings. But most of the investments are still behind TV and digital. I'll say that TV still plays an important part in our mix today. But digital is obviously important because people are spending more time on social media and on their phones across the country.
Q. You launched Lotus Biscoff biscuits recently, but at fairly low entry price points. Are you worried that might affect the perception of the product as a premium, imported biscuit?
Not at all. I don’t think premium means that it can't be accessible. If you’re a new user trying the biscuit out for the first time, or eating for yourself, you will want the smaller pack of four, right? Then once you try and you like it, you’ll buy a bigger pack for everyone. So, I think the different price points help us address different shopper needs.
Finally, India is in the throes of cheaply priced GLP-1 drugs. In mature markets, these drugs had an adverse impact on rich, indulgent packaged food. Do you anticipate it playing out here?
I think in India there is a role for all kinds of snacks. Indulgence has a strong role to play. You want to have something tasty. And chocolate has its own sort of magic to it. Also, food acts as a social lubricant. I think we have to see how it [GLP-1 weight-loss drugs] kind of evolves. The role that our snacking categories play is very strong and taste is a very important factor in it.