The giant of snack products in the world and the creator of such well-known brands as Oreo and Cadbury chocolate, Mondelez is now making a significant investment in generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) to transform the process of creating marketing content. The reason is that the company is implementing a new generative AI tool with the express purpose of significantly lowering the expenditure required to produce marketing content. This is a strategic step that puts Mondelez in line with other global consumer goods companies that are exploring AI as a means of dealing with challenges such as declining shopper budgets and tariffs.

Expectations and development

One of the senior executives of Mondelez told Reuters that the company believes that the new generative AI tool will be able to reduce the cost of producing marketing content by a substantial percentage of between 30% and 50%. This significant saving on spending is one of the main factors why the new technology is being invested in.

The packaged-food producer initiated the development of this AI tool last year with the help of some important industry partners. The advertising firm Publicis Groupe and the IT firm Accenture take part in the project as partners. Mondelez has already invested heavily in the tool more than $40 million. 

Mondelez is also optimistic about the creative potential of the tool and the speed to market benefit. The company anticipates that the AI tool will be in a position to generate brief TV commercials that would be available to air as early as the next holiday season (2019). It is also possible to look at the tool to create content to advertise the big games, such as the 2027 Super Bowl.

Mondelez is already using the content created by the new tool on social media for some of its major brands. It has Chips Ahoy cookies in the U.S. and Milka chocolate in Germany, which are examples of current deployment.

Prevention and content strategy

The business has a roadmap for increasing the implementation of the AI tool in its portfolio and international markets. The AI tool will be used in the U.S. in November to generate content on Amazon and Walmart on Oreo product pages. Mondelez will use the tool on Lacta chocolate and Oreo in Brazil and Cadbury in the UK in the next several months.

One of the important choices related to the content strategy of Mondelez is that the company is not using human likenesses in the currently generated content with AI. This is a differentiating factor, particularly considering the experience of competitors. Other competitors, including Kraft Heinz and Coca-Cola, are also trying AI to make ads. In 2024, some consumers mocked Coke when its AI-generated holiday ads featured computer-generated human figures because their use of computer technology seemed to be devoid of real emotion.

Tina Vaswani, the digital enablement and data vice president of Mondelez, reassured that there will be human control at all times to avoid any problems or mishaps during the content generation. Human beings will verify what the tool generates before actual usage. Another set of rules that the Chicago-based company has adopted to regulate the AI is that the tool should not promote any unhealthy eating habits, vaping, overconsumption, or use of emotionally manipulative language or offensive stereotypes.

Conclusion

The significant strategic move that Mondelez undertook in order to revolutionize its marketing activities is to invest more than $40 million in a new generative AI tool, created with the help of Publicis Groupe and Accenture. The company is adopting AI to gain higher efficiency and speed-to-market by a goal of reducing content production spending by 30%-50% and intends to roll out AI-generated advertisements on a large scale within major upcoming campaigns.