Mondelēz International, the global snacking giant behind beloved brands like Oreo, Chips Ahoy!, Ritz, and Perfect Bar, is transforming its marketing approach with a significant investment in artificial intelligence. The company has developed a new generative AI tool, dubbed AIDA (AI + Data), to personalize advertising for consumers and boost engagement across its extensive portfolio.
The development of AIDA began more than two years ago, with Mondelēz investing upwards of $40 million in the technology. This substantial investment is projected to yield considerable returns, potentially cutting the cost of marketing content creation by up to 50%. The long-term savings could be even greater if AIDA's capabilities are expanded to other areas of the food manufacturer's business.
AIDA empowers Mondelēz to produce marketing content with greater speed and efficiency, significantly reducing costs. Crucially, it allows for the personalization of marketing materials tailored to specific consumer groups, a key driver for enhanced engagement and conversion in today's competitive landscape. The nascent platform, which officially launched in July, is still being refined to understand the unique intricacies of each brand and to ensure responsible advertising practices, particularly by avoiding the promotion of unhealthy behaviors like overindulgence.
Driving Personalization and Efficiency with AI
Jennifer Mennes, Vice President of Global Head of Digital Marketing and Strategy at Mondelēz, and Tina Vaswani, the company's Vice President of Digital Enablement and Consumer Data, recently discussed AIDA's role in food marketing. Mennes highlighted the strategic importance of AIDA, noting the high entry investment required careful planning.
“We've been extremely thoughtful of how we tackle this because the entry investment is quite high. So in order to make this a priority for the marketing organization and Mondelēz overall, we need to make sure that we were very thoughtful of the different types of features that we needed to build, that we're going to drive the most value back as quick as possible, which also made us consider what brands we should pilot first,” Mennes explained.
The core motivation for AIDA stemmed from the sheer volume of content required to achieve Mondelēz's ambitions for personalization and high-level engagement. Traditional methods were simply not scalable. "Doing it the traditional way today, it was not going to be attainable," Mennes stated, emphasizing that AI provides the automated solutions necessary to meet content volume goals and engage consumers effectively. She clarified that AIDA is not a new strategy but an enabler, allowing the company to "do more faster and better."
Vaswani added that a crucial part of the process involved re-envisioning existing workflows to identify where AI could provide the most significant uplift in efficiency. "Just applying AI on top doesn't always give you the best results," she cautioned, underscoring the need for thoughtful assessment of each feature's value add versus potential development time drains.
Navigating the Nuances of Food Product Marketing
While AIDA has shown particular effectiveness in certain applications, Mondelēz is continuously experimenting to optimize its use. Mennes noted the learning curve involved, particularly how the AI's output for a biscuit or cookie can differ significantly from that for chocolate. The teams are actively pushing the system's boundaries, for instance, generating images of golden Oreos even though the AI was initially trained only on the classic black and white sandwich cookie. This iterative experimentation is key to maximizing the system's value.
A unique challenge for Mondelēz, compared to other CPG companies, lies in the visual fidelity required for food products. "A lot of our CPG peers, the product they show, it's a bottle. They're not showing the inside products," Mennes explained. For snacks, the product itself, not just the packaging, must be prominently displayed to convey taste appeal and drive impulse purchases. This demands a much higher level of fidelity in the AI models than for, say, a shampoo bottle.
Vaswani echoed this, acknowledging that while AI holds great promise, Mondelēz has a significant responsibility to maintain brand integrity and the high quality of imagery consumers expect. "This is where we're realizing that AI has a bit more to go in terms of getting it perfectly the way we [want it]," she admitted.
Ensuring Responsible AI and Brand Compliance
Mondelēz is also deeply committed to responsible AI practices, extending beyond just trademark and copyright concerns. Mennes highlighted the importance of adhering to brand principles, such as avoiding the depiction of overindulgence. "We don't want to show overindulgence, so I can't have outputs of 18 cookies or 15 pieces of chocolate," she stated.
The company integrates specific brand rules into the platform to ensure outputs remain within established frameworks. For more regulated brands like Halls cough drops or Belvita biscuits, where specific claims are made, rules would be built into the platform to dictate permissible language. This proactive approach ensures that AI-generated content aligns with legal and ethical guidelines from the outset.
Importantly, no AI-generated content goes to market without a thorough legal review. "We're not going around the advertising approval process," Mennes affirmed. AIDA merely accelerates the content creation process, ensuring that initial outputs are less likely to contain elements that would be flagged during the manual legal review.
Future Expansion and Scalability
Looking ahead, Vaswani confirmed that AIDA's underlying infrastructure is designed for scalability. Mondelēz is currently evaluating the next significant value cases for the technology, determining whether future applications will fit within the existing AIDA suite or necessitate new platform development. The company is approaching this expansion thoughtfully and pragmatically, leveraging its expandable foundation to address future business needs.
