How Mondelēz International keeps Oreo dynamic with fearless marketing

Fueled by creativity and enthusiasm, the successful launch of Oreo's Colorfilled campaign exemplifies how Mondelēz International is able to consistently remain ahead of the marketing curve.

From the beginning of November until Christmas of this year, Oreo lovers will be able to customize the packaging of their cookies and have personalized gift boxes delivered to their door. This limited-time offer is Oreo's most recent customization initiative that responds to parent company, Mondelēz International's, vision of growing its e-commerce revenue to $1 billion by 2020.

Many wonder how Oreo, a century old cookie brand, is able to continue delivering vivid experience to its consumers. This can be ascribed to the innovative mindset that parallels the fervor of a startup culture at Mondelēz International, dubbing the strategic approach to the iconic treat's campaign as "fearless marketing."

"We are scared every day - we don't look like Cisco, Facebook, or Google, and we are not Snapchat. So how can we identify the right talent and create the right culture to take advantage of the opportunity in front of us? Three years ago, [Mondelēz International's CMO] Dana Anderson challenged the organization to be fearless, and as a result, changed the way in which the company operated going forward," says Bonin Bough, chief media and e-commerce officer at Mondelēz International.

Customization enables a 100-year-old brand to be disruptive 

When discussing the concept of being "disruptive" within the context of marketing, the term typically refers to emerging tech companies - like Uber and Airbnb - that have acquired a reputation for being irresistible in their innovation, and therefore revolutionary. As a snack brand, Oreo aspires to be a disruptor in its category as well, according to Bough. Oreo Colorfilled is the first time Mondelēz International has ever allowed fans customize packaging, thus creating a personalized experience completely dictated by consumers, as they interact and engage with the iconic cookie brand.

Packages feature exclusive, black-and-white designs as the canvas, from graphic artists Jeremyville and Timothy Goodman. After selecting one of the two available templates, consumers can zoom in or out to select which area of the intricate prints they wish to add their own personal touches to.

Available on both desktop and mobile, users have the option to paint with a diverse color palate, and can further customize packages by accessorizing bags with a selection of original graphic stamps. There is also an option to compose an original message for each package.

Prior to Oreo Colorfilled, Mondelēz International had already established its reputation as the driving transformative force behind the brand-evolution of the century-old, iconic sweet treat.

On June 25, 2012, Oreo took a progressive stance by joining in the celebration of LGBT Pride Month, supporting the LGBT cause with a picture of a rainbow-colored, cream filled Oreo cookie on its social platforms. The images displayed on Facebook and Twitter were posted in conjunction with the caption, "Proudly support love!"

The post gained more than 90,000 shares and still has over 280,000 likes to date on Facebook alone. Such success led the Oreo team to seriously consider the value of real-time marketing on social. 

We’re all the same on the inside. #Pride pic.twitter.com/aqooO1kzj7 — Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) June 19, 2015

 After more than a year of experimentation with instantaneous, real-time marketing tactics, Oreo's "Dunk in the Dark" Tweet went live during the Super Bowl power outage. The timeliness of this post led to it going viral online, and this blackout Tweet is still considered the epitome of a social media coup by many in the industry today.

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

 Last year at South by Southwest, Oreo unveiled a Trending Vending Machine, which allowed attendees to customize cookies based on what was trending on Twitter.

"People waited for two and a half hours to get a cookie. This was when we learned that customization could be a huge platform for this brand," Bough says. "In order to make this happen, companies must collaborate with the best talent possible, both inside and outside of the organization. Also, they must create a culture that lets talent dream bigger," he adds.

Behind the scenes of Oreo Colorfilled

The launch of Oreo Colorfilled represents a culmination of Bough's conception of collaboration, thinking big, and culture. Initially, the idea for Colorfilled came from the company's e-commerce team, led by Cindy Chen, global head of e-commerce venture at Mondelēz International.

Two months ago, Lauren Fleischer, global brand manager of e-commerce at Mondelēz International, brought up Colorfilled at the company's monthly brainstorm meeting. It was expected that a project of this magnitude would take around two years to complete, so the majority of attendees wanted to shut down this plan, even referring to it as the product of "negative brainstorming."

"My co-workers had 400 reasons why this plan would not work; we didn't have enough time, we didn't have a plant, we didn't have a website, and we didn't have a box. But one colleague finally said to me, 'You guys can continue doing this negative brainstorming all day, or you can just leave and decide how to make this happen,'" Fleischer says.

Instead of repeatedly identifying and dwelling on the problem, in an effort to find solutions, Chen and Fleischer decided to bring a team of positive brainstormers together. This team consisted of Mondelēz's long-time agency partner, The Martin Agency, and MAYA Design, the tech design firm that was involved in the Trending Vending Machine at South by Southwest. They also collaborated with HP marketing executive, Doris Brown-Mcnally, to figure out the appropriate printing technologies required to execute this concept. After leasing a warehouse on a Monday, in two days, the Colorfilled team managed to convert the space into a functioning Oreo factory, opening its doors by Wednesday of the same week. 

Using Mondelēz International's proven formula for excellence, creativity and innovation were able to operate at the speed of culture, thus allowing the Colorfilled initiative to successfully come into fruition quickly, in spite of lingering doubts.

Oreo Colorfilled is small version of a start-up business that is part of a larger conglomerate. Such isolation provides employees a level of freedom that encourages the initiation of projects based on passion.

"I'm a start-up resident at Mondelēz International. You can manage a big political organization - that's an amazing skill -or you can operate something on your own," Fleischer notes.

The future

Oreo Colorfilled is just the start of the cookie brand's e-commerce journey. Going forward, the company will continue to encourage in-house marketers to be fearless in order to optimize mobile and social commerce by effectively incorporating personalization and real-time marketing into campaign strategy.

Today Oreo fans can customize the packing - tomorrow they may even be able to customize flavors on an individual basis.

"How can we take Oreo to the next level as a power brand? 30 percent of our consumers are interested in personalization," Chen says.

The company will also keep an eye on interface free shopping tools - such as the Amazon Dash Button - and achieve the same disruptive, revolutionary status through innovation within the snack industry.

Clearly, the Oreo brand is currently being driven by a team of smart cookies.  

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Email Interaction: Tell It Like It Is

One-click emails are an efficient way for consumers to share personal preferences with brands and provides email marketers actionable data that can be used to enhance the customer experience.

As humans, we are accustomed to dealing with yin and yang, good and evil, happy and sad. Whether in the tangible world or the digital world, one can expect for the good to always come with the bad. Recently, Facebook has announced that it is testing a "Dislike" button to convey the notion of disapproval and complement the Like button. 

Whether Facebook winds up implementing the Dislike button or not, it's clear that it understands the value in knowing the likes and dislikes of its members. Testing the Dislike button demonstrates that simple question and answer content has the potential to generate extremely valuable information, and email marketers can borrow from the polarity of these options. You don't have to be Facebook to reap the rewards of this information; email marketers can also use a variety of techniques to learn what their consumers like and dislike.

Some consumers absolutely love what’s landing in their inboxes. Others may dislike it to the point of unsubscribing or complaining that messages are spam. Yet, these sentiments and points of input remain a mystery for many marketers. Fortunately, an email itself can be used to gather input related to the root cause of possible complaints and disengagement metrics.

First, email marketers must recognize that messaging and brand communication is not a one directional valve that drops information to the masses. Brands can tap into the true potential of the email channel while simultaneously empowering their customers to vote for the next promotional offering, the next product to stock up on, or the next cover of the catalog. These types of communications create an opportunity for subscribers to tell it like it is.

Using input data to determine a customer's likes and dislikes enables email marketers to bring more innovation, interaction, and reality to an inbox. Email clicks provide a wealth of explicit and implicit input data from a consumer that immediately translates into an actionable data point. This triggers an automated touch point in the consumer journey, which allows email marketers to develop more use cases for inbox interaction and data gathering, providing a more meaningful inbox and overall brand experience. 

With email now open on mobile more than any other device, a Like/Dislike or Yes/No option is a fast track to capturing actionable data from consumers on the go. A quick input approach also works well on mobile push notifications, which makes all digital communications inherently more interactive.

Essentially, the beauty of one-click email is that it lets recipients have a voice - they can tell it like it is on the spot. Here are three examples of brands using one-click emails to prompt automated lifecycle messages based on the customer's direct influence and proactively address issues that could culminate in the form of a block, complaint, or even an unsubscribe action.

1. TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor can gather valuable input via one question about travel destination preference.

 

2. Shop Your Way

Shop Your Way uses coupon value to gather fast feedback.

3. Amazon

Amazon asks for input on delivery status as a means to collect actionable data.


There is virtually no limit to the type of data you can capture with these types of binary questions. The first step is to understand what kind of data you could easily capture. That enables you to deliver a more relevant message and customer experience. Next, build out a plan to collect this information over a series of messages and touchpoints, whether via email, mobile push notifications, or any other channel. Once your customers see that you're using the data to create a better user experience, they will continue to participate in this type of progressive profiling.

Is your email program allowing your audience to share its sentiments? Are you putting this data into action with relevant, timely communication? If not, consider these possibilities and open up new lines of communication by encouraging your audience to tell it like it is.

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Your Favorite Social Media Networks Are Turning Into Amazon

We’ve all grown accustomed to liking, re-tweeting, pinning, and sharing each other’s posts and materials in the world of social media, but all of that may soon be supplanted by the next step in social evolution: buying and selling.

Word is leaking that social media site Pinterest, a platform that more or less operates like a digital scrapbook, is planning on adding a “buy” button to its interface. The news comes our way via Recode, which reports that Pinterest has had the idea in gestation for a long while, and appears to finally be willing to pull the trigger on its implementation. The network itself boasts 70 million daily users, and by moving forward with its new e-commerce strategy, is finding a prime way to further monetize all of that traffic.

Like its social media counterparts Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest has focused on generating revenues through advertising sales thus far. But making the jump to e-commerce will be a rather large and potentially monstrously profitable change. And Pinterest isn’t alone. Both Facebook and Twitter have also been kicking the idea of adding a ‘buy now’ button to their platforms, and it appears that even Google will be getting in on the action.

The risk that these social media networks run when enacting this plan, of course, is that they will ultimately malign their respective user bases. That was the initial fear when Facebook first started to implement advertising several years ago, and instead of scaring away users, the company became an international business power. Thus, other networks followed suit by adding paid advertising with little to no negative effect. Adding e-commerce and further revenue-driving capabilities to these sites seems like the next logical progression for them to make, especially with coming valuations and plans for further expansion.

When you crunch the numbers on how much money is out there and up for grabs, it only strengthens the case for social media companies to jump into the fray. Amazon has really pioneered the platform for e-commerce over the years, and by adding “buy now” buttons to their interfaces, social networks will start to straddle industry lines by assuming a different identity than the one that sparked their initial growth.

  

Source: Thinkstock

Really, though, it’s hard to blame the leadership behind these social media giants for wanting to make this move.
 eMarketer reports that worldwide retail sales topped $22 trillion in 2014, and 5.9% of that — or $1.3 trillion — was through e-commerce sales. By 2018, that share is expected to grow to 8.8% of all sales, and probably continue an upward trajectory from there.

So, using 2014’s numbers, there is $1.3 trillion in potential revenue being spent by consumers online this very moment. It would really be foolish for social media companies — who already have some skin in the game on some level — not to try and siphon off some of those dollars for themselves. Social media use accounts for 22.5% of all the time Americans spend online, according to e-commerce company Wiser, and consumers are 71% more likely to buy products from a brand that they currently follow on social media. Companies like Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter obviously have our attention, so it only makes sense that they should bridge the gap between buyer and seller, while taking some commission for themselves.

Otherwise, wouldn’t consumers just jump over to Amazon and order it? There’s little reason not to simply step into that role, and act as the intermediary.

Again, the only real risk any of these platforms are running is changing the experience for their users, and ultimately scaring them away. But if all of these platforms are adding e-commerce capabilities at roughly the same time, it’s really limiting where users can ultimately flee to. That may not be intentional, but it’s certainly going to work in their favor. And it’s really unclear whether users will actually see their experience change on these sites, other than simply seeing “buy now” buttons, and actively using or ignoring them.

From a consumer and social media user’s perspective, the biggest difference the implementation of e-commerce protocols on social media networks may simply be that these platforms adopt a more Amazon-esque appearance or functionality. But they are social platforms first and foremost, so there probably isn’t too much to worry about.

For social networks themselves, there’s really no downside. With literally trillions of dollars up for grabs, there’s no reason no to wade into the e-commerce fight. Amazon and others may find a way to counter, but for now, online shopping is about to get a lot more social.

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Twitter Introduces Twitter Offers: This Week in Social Media

Twitter Introduces Twitter Offers: “This feature, Twitter Offers, enables advertisers to create card-linked promotions and share them directly with Twitter users.”

“With Twitter Offers, advertisers will be able to attribute redemptions directly to their campaigns on Twitter, so that they can effectively measure the ROI from their promotions, even when redemption happens offline.”

Vine Gives You Push Notifications From Your Favorite Accounts: “Now, you can select your favorite accounts to be sure you see Vines from them.”

“Simply tap the star in the top right corner of a user’s profile to make them a favorite.”

Here’s some social media news worth following:

Facebook Updating Terms and Policies: These updates will take effect on January 1, 2015. They aim to help you “understand how Facebook works and how to control your information.”

Twitter Experiments With Tweet Analytics: According to The Verge, “a new tool in Twitter’s official mobile app lets users see a variety of metrics about their tweets, but not everyone has access to it, and it’s not clear whether it’ll ever roll out to the entire user base.”

Amazon Launches Social Buying for Amazon Webstore: “Drive direct sales from social media news feeds with shareable, shoppable posts of your Amazon Webstore products.”

Here’s a cool social media tool worth checking out:

Livefyre Studio: “The world’s first real-time content marketing and engagement platform.”

Here are some recent studies worth noting:

How Tweets Drive Sales: New Holiday Shopping Research: The latest holiday research study from Twitter and the research firm DB5 found that 54% of Twitter users say promotions found on Twitter motivate them to buy. The same number of people also checked Twitter while shopping in retail stores. Twitter users tend to shop earlier for the holidays (34%) and enjoy the experience (81%) more than non-users. Twitter users also spend more with 24% planning to spend $1,000 or more this holiday season compared to only 10% of non-users.

How Identity Influences Online Content Sharing [Infographic]: Boutique agency Fractl surveyed 1,000 social media users to discover what aspects of their identity motivated their content sharing online. Overall, personal identity ranked as the third most important motivation for sharing content, after wanting to entertain (44%) and wanting to educate (25%). Eighty-four percent of respondents ranked relational identity (i.e., being a good friend or partner) as an important reason why they share content online. Sixty-three percent ranked personal identity (personal values and morals) as an important factor. The study also found that women expect more engagement from their friends and followers, but men share content more frequently.

CEB/Radius Study Reveals B2B Marketers Not Using Social Media’s Full Potential: Findings from a new survey of CEB Research on behalf of Radius, Inc. show over 80% of small- and medium-sized business (SMBs) owners primarily use social media to market their own products or services, but not to interact with suppliers. When SMB owners do interact with suppliers, it’s usually limited to easy-to-access deals and promotional offers, but there is potential for so much more. Among SMB owners that have seen social media messages from their suppliers, almost 40% report feeling more positive about the supplier’s brand. This study is part of a larger report titled Social Media 2014 Update: Three Use Cases for Marketing to Small Business Owners, conducted in June 2014.

HubSpot’s Sixth Annual Report on Inbound Marketing and Selling: The 2014 State of Inbound Marketing, HubSpot’s recent survey of over 3,500 marketing and sales professionals, found the number of marketers practicing inbound marketing rose to 85% this year from 60% last year. While ROI tops marketing challenges, the #1 marketing priority seems to be lead generation (24%) followed by lead conversion (21%). The study also found marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI.

STUDY: Average Fortune 100 Brand Has 320 Social Media Accounts: New study from security-as-a-service provider Proofpoint found that the average Fortune 100brand has 320 social media accounts, up 80% over the past three years. Brand-generated content accounts for less than 7% of content shared on those social media channels, yet companies can still be held liable for the other 93%, including user-generated or partner content. Each company uses an average of 12 distinct publishing tools and applications to manage their social media channels. However, only 30% of corporate social publishing is conducted through enterprise social publishing and relationship management tools.

7 in 10 Enterprise CEOs Believe They Are Wasting Money on Marketing Initiatives: A Forbes Insights study, conducted in association with Rocket Fuel and Spencer Stuart, found that 69% (36% agree; 33% strongly agree) of the 296 global senior executives surveyed believe their company wastes money on marketing initiatives, a sentiment shared by only 34% of CMOs (22% agree;12% strongly agree). The study also found that the CMO/CEO disconnect is equally as large when measuring attitudes about customer knowledge. The study authors suggest better data might be the remedy, pointing to the results indicating that executives who understand big data are more likely to be able to drive insights and avoid waste.

Transera and Harris Poll Survey Reveals the American Consumer’s Perspective on Big Data and the Customer Experience: New survey results from Harris Poll and data analytics company Transera Inc. show that a majority (67%) of American consumers are willing to give companies access to their personal information in exchange for better service or products. However, that’s primarily limited to very basic information like their name (53%), demographic (33%) and contact information (34%). Half of those surveyed say they trust social media companies the least among any other industry to use their data to provide a better customer experience.

Here’s more social content worth noting:

The Rise of Podcasts as Business Education: “It talks about why podcasting is on the rise among businesspeople.”

The Rise of Podcasts as Business Education. Attribution to MarketingPodcasts.com.

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Amazon answers 'Double 11' with Black Friday

Screenshot shows Amazon's "Black Friday" shopping carnival will kick off for the first time in China from 9 am on Friday. [Photo/amazon.cn]

Amazon plans to bring this year's "Black Friday" shopping spree to China, a move seen as escalating the competition with Alibaba in the world's biggest e-commerce market.

The western shopping carnival will kick off for the first time in China from 9 am on Friday, said Amazon on its website, when online shoppers can search for best deals the first day after Thanksgiving and shop for Christmas.

"Black Friday" versus "Double 11"

There are about 800,000 items on Amazon China's dedicated website for overseas shopping, with categories ranging from garment, shoes, makeup to health care and sports. Delivery takes as little as three days to two weeks on average, according to the website.

Amazon China will offer up to 70 percent off on about 35,000 products from 9 am to 4 pm on Friday, 6,000 of which will be exclusive, reported Chinese financial media Caixin quoting the company's information. The campaign in China will last throughout Saturday, which will be Friday in the US, when some of the products will be sold at half price.

Caixin added that with a delivery system covering 3,000 cities in China, Amazon aims at creating "a festival for overseas online shopping" and extending its international strategy.

Amazon launched the Chinese site on Nov 11, a day also known as "Double 11" or "Single's Day" in China and celebrated by young people shopping online.

Alibaba created the Chinese version of the shopping festival in 2009 and has made it a tradition since then. This year was the first time that the e-commerce behemoth launched the campaign on both its domestic and overseas platforms. Online sales on Alibaba's Tmall.com, Taobao.com and its overseas outlets, such as AliExpress, topped 57.1 billion yuan ($9.34 billion) on Nov 11.

Jockey for cross-border e-commerce

While Amazon is working on its Chinese site to attract Chinese shoppers into the "Black Friday" campaign, Alibaba's payment arm Alipay is teaming up with a group of high-end retailers in the US preparing for the same promotion.

Merchants participating in the first Black Friday promotion include Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, iHerb, Gilt, Ashford, Ann Taylor, American Apparel and Aeropostale.

"Alipay is delighted to partner with Borderfree and Shoprunner to help leading US retailers introduce Black Friday to China and reach out to eager new customers through well-managed localized promotions, direct marketing and social media campaigns," said Rebecca Lui, director of marketing and public relations for Alipay US.

According to Bloomberg, Alibaba is open to working with eBay's Paypal and Apple's payment system to expand payment options and keeps exploring overseas market.

Alipay also announced its plan to set up a subsidiary company in Sydney and support cross-border e-commerce between China and Australia on Tuesday.

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