Mondelez shakes up senior marketing team as it posts better-than-expected profits
Mondelez has shaken up its global marketing team for the second time in less than 18 months as it looks to build on promising results from its latest quarter and drive forward plans to grow its e-commerce business.
The snacks giant introduced a new marketing structure last July, as its chief marketing officer Mary Beth West departed to make way for a region category-led operating model. At the time, marketing for the company’s portfolio of brands fell into Mark Clouse’s remit in the newly created role of chief growth officer.
Today (28 October) the brand announced that Clouse had been promoted to another newly created role – chief commercial officer – as it looks to "simplify and accelerate day-to-day P&L decision-making and trade-offs" while "focusing investments in areas that will best drive profitable growth".
Replacing Clouse is Tim Cofer, current president of Mondelez's business in Asia Pacific and EMEA, who will now oversee the FMCG-giants marketing as well as "the development of next generation innovation platforms”.
Mondelez said the pair will work “hand in hand” to advance its transformation agenda and accelerate growth on both top and bottom lines.
It’s reflective of similar moves across the industry to better align marketing and sales and for Mondelez, it will put in place a structure to help it arrive at its ambitious target of $1bn in online sales by 2020.
To date, the Oreo-maker has been dabbling in ‘buy now’ buttons across channels like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and has been testing activity with retailers in several markets.
On a call with investors, the company’s CEO Irene Rosenfeld said that it was now increasing its e-commerce business in Europe by partnering with a growing list of retail partners who are at the fore of click-and-collect.
The company is also continuing efforts to shift more of its advertising budgets into digital. Last month, Clouse said he expected digital media to account for around 30 per cent of its total media outlay by the end of 2015, which is double that from the end of 2014.
The strategy has helped its third-quarter profits reach $7.27bn, beating analysts’ expectations of $6.81bn.