If love is the universal language, snacks may be the universal food. And that's one reason the spinoff of Mondelez International from Kraft Foods last year looks more and more like a good move, at least for Mondelez and its shareholders.

Mondelez's portfolio of global snack brands—ranging from Oreo to Cadbury to Trident—relies on emerging markets for about 40 percent of its revenue right now, and by 2020 the company projects that 110 million households in India, Russia and Brazil will move into the middle class, the socioeconomic stratum where serious snacking begins in most markets because consumers have achieved the economic wherewithal for recreational eating.

"As they do, we believe they'll step up their chocolate consumption by about three times," Bharat Puri, Mondelez's senior vice president of global chocolate, told analysts recently, according to Advertising Age.Continue reading...

Mondelez International's first-of-its-kind Mobile Futures Network is teaming brands with top entrepreneurial minds to bring pilots to market in as little as 90 days. 

"The Mobile Futures program has been an extraordinary experience for all of us at Mondelez International,” said Bonin Bough, vice president of global media and consumer engagement. “It has given us the opportunity to work with and learn from leading mobile innovators to enhance how we engage with our consumers.” 

The pilots, focused on mobile-at-retail, social TV and SoLoMo (social/ location/ mobile) technology to enhance consumer experiences and drive impulse purchases have launched across multiple brands under the Mondelez umbrella. The global company hopes that the service-y and social tie-ins will help build brand relevance beyond obvious user engagements for brands like Chips Ahoy! and Stride Gum.Continue reading...

Joining other major companies and brands such as Unilever, Nike, PepsiCo, Lexus, BMW and AT&T in spurring mobile innovation around its brands, Mondelez International is investing in mobile startups in the hopes that they'll bring the kind of game-changing innovations to the company that often are hard to come by at corporate stalwarts such as the global-snacks operation that used to be part of Kraft Foods.

That said, it was Kraft that spearheaded the mobile incubator program that Mondelez is now running with. Mondelez just announced nine startups to participate in an ambitious new mobile-technology initiative aimed at drivng more impulse purchases and better in-store marketing. Called Mobile Futures, the program kicked off in October with a call for new ideas that drew 126 applications. Twenty-two startups survived the first cut, then were narrowed to nine after a two-day pitch event last month.

Mondelez hopes to launch one or two mobile-focused tech companies out of the process as well as garner new applications specifically for its business. It's one important way in which the spinoff — which owns megabrands such as Oreo, Trident, Stride and Cadbury — is attempting to do business differently, more dynamically, than in its old incarnation paired with what has now become Kraft's North American grocery business.Continue reading...

Jack Myers, CEO of Jack Myers Media Business Report, opened the Social TV Summit in New York on Thursday by noting that there has been, and will be, more technological evolution taking place in the next decade than all the new technology that has emerged since the Industrial Revolution.

“The artistry of how to use it is the next phase as we shift from an embrace of hardware to response and use," he said. "It’s no longer about change, but stability. Companies and brands are stability agents — taking chaos and translating it into stability rather than just information, and the method for this is panning through technology.”

The opening panel took a look at an industry-first, the social novella, as crafted by Mondelez’s Trident brand, Telemundo NBC and Starcom MediaVest, a collaboration that resulted in the web series, Secreteando. Composed of ten interactive online episodes, including v-blogs segments, extended scenes, broadcast promos and a one-hour on-demand version of the series, it iterates storytelling to digital and social through use of the second screen.Continue reading...

A major part of the logic behind the split-up of Kraft into snacks go-getter (and naming-challenged) Mondelēz International and its more tired North American grocery business is to create a "global snacking powerhouse" — and spur growth in the latter enterprise.

As Forbes noted, Kraft is moving from the New York Stock Exchange to NASDAQ with the move to spin off its North American business and rebrand its corporate parent: "Kraft is keeping its faster-growing global snacks business into a new company named Mondelēz International, ticker MDLZ, while its spun-off North American grocery business will keep the Kraft Foods name but trade under ticker KRFT. Both stocks will list on the Nasdaq when the breakup is complete, and the KFT symbol will be retired."

Now that Kraft Foods Group can begin selling shares with its own listing as an independent company after the market's close on Oct. 1st, it's time for Kraft to fulfill investor expectations as Mondelēz (which will debut on Oct. 3rd, with a defiant macron over its final 'ē') is considered to be the higher growth stock.Continue reading...

Time to hide the children and batten down the hatches. Kraft Foods is “ready to unleash a global snacking powerhouse,” chairman and CEO Irene Rosenfeld told investors and analysts in the company's presentation at the Barclays Back to School conference in Boston on Thursday.

The snacks behemoth will officially launch the Mondelez brand for the global marketplace on Oct. 3 and is hoping that consumers in China, India, and Brazil start chowing down more and more on such products as Oreo cookies (a $2 billion brand thanks to glocal versions in China), Cadbury chocolates, and Trident gum. Kraft will maintain another division under the Kraft name that will focus solely on the North American marketplace and features such grocery staples as Velveeta and Oscar Mayer.

While the CPG giant is predicting to have a 2013 profit of $2.60 per share, according to the AP, it is also expecting Mondelez to not come zooming out of the gate.Continue reading...

AB InBev closes in on buying remainder of Mexico's Grupo Modelo for more than $12 billion.

Apple adds Yelp check-ins to iPhone maps app, sees Motorola Mobility patent case shut down by federal judge and retail workers described by NYT as "loyal but short on pay."

Best Buy tries to regain edge before back-to-school season.

BlackBerry owner RIM reportedly considers a plan to split its company in two.

Cadillac surprises with integration of Apple's Siri voice.

Carl's Jr. and Hardee's set Spider-Man movie tie-in.

Dewar's announces three-year partnership with TED.

Dairy Queen gripes about New York menu restrictions as it enters the city.Continue reading...

Trident gum, as we reported yesterday, is changing its tune and leaving its old positioning. For years, as seen in the above video, Trident's positioning emphasized that Trident gum has oral health and even vitamin benefits. Now, the Kraft Foods brand is targeting gum-chewers in the 20-39 age range in its first global campaign: “It’s like a smile for your brain that starts in your mouth” and the tagline “Trident, See What Unfolds.”

In giving up Trident's position emphasizing cosmetic and health benefits, Kraft is leaving a lot of history behind. The Trident brand was the first national brand of sugar-free chewing gum, and derives its name from three enzymes believed to soften dental tartar, leveraging artificial sweeteners instead of sugar. 

Sugar-Free Trident was introduced in 1964 with the slogan "The Great Taste that Is Good for Your Teeth," which changed mid-60s to "4 out of 5 dentists surveyed would recommend sugarless gum to their patients who chew gum." Continue reading...