Mondelez predicts the rise of the strategic planner in agencies as key to new model success
Mondelez’s ambition for its marketing to actually make money will see it rely on a new role within agencies which can sit at the intersection between traditional creative shops and entertainment companies.
Mondelez
“There’s a real emergence of strategic planners which can bridge those two worlds, they’re [going to be] more important than ever,” Laura Henderson, global head of content and media monetisation, told The Drum at the Cannes Lions festival in France this week.
The FMCG-giant revealed its new marketing model earlier this month, setting the ambitious goal of creating content that’s so good broadcasters and other media companies will actually buy it. This strategy, it believes, will see 10 per cent of its global media investments to break even or turn a profit within the next three years.
But it has the potential to seriously disrupt the industry, with traditional creative and media buying agencies most at risk of becoming left behind as it eyes direct partnerships with the likes of BuzzFeed and Fox to create and run advertising that doesn’t look like advertising. For example, its first piece of work under this new model will be a TV show called Heaven Sent, sponsored by Stride chewing gum, which will see a man jump out of an aeroplane without a parachute.
As such, Mondelez has already said it needs the flexibility to work with agencies in twenty-week bursts, as opposed to the agency of record model which Henderson's boss - CMO Dana Anderson - predicted was on its way out over two years ago. After testing it over the past year that strategy will begin to roll out globally in the coming months.
“The whole landscape is in a point of transformation right now,” explained Henderson.
“Our traditional creative agencies are great at telling brand stories, but have never been asked to build standalone entertainment properties. On the flip side, looking at entertainment companies, their bread and butter is telling compelling stories but not to actually think about integrating a brand.”
Henderson said during Cannes she was met with several partners that have recognised this and are starting to look at what they need to do within their companies to support Mondelez.
“It will be interesting to see what happens but that different skillset is what we need right now.”
Internally, Mondelez has also been making changes to underpin the strategy. Henderson’s team is currently acting “like a startup in a big organisation” but it will soon begin to scale the model which will impact all parts of the business, not just marketing.
Much like its agencies, Mondelez is also having to reassess the skills of its marketers, who she believes are now more like broadcast programmers.
“We’ve got more fragmentation, more partners, and more agencies than ever before and the skillset is less about writing a brief for an ad and having it delivered back. Marketers now have to take a very active role in designing for the entire experience. They’re become ‘experience planners’ and connecting the dots across the way,” she said.