POP HEARTS THIS VALENTINE’S, THE MONDELEZ WAY

BY IMPACT Staff

Mondelez is back with another Valentine’s Day campaign telling consumers to #PopYourHeartOut. Prashant Peres, Director Marketing (Chocolates), Mondelez India tells us all about what the brand is up to this season

BY SAMARPITA BANERJEE

It’s that time of the year again when love is in the air, and Mondelez is doing its bit to add to the cheer. Every year during Valentine’s Day, the brand brings out a high-octane 360 degree campaign, along with special limited editions of its premium offering, Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk. This year, Mondelez is asking its consumers to #PopYourHeartOut with a special limited edition of the Silk bar, which allows one to literally pop a chocolate heart out of the bar, to share with loved ones.
 

Along with the pop-out heart, the brand is also adding some more innovations to its campaign this year. For the first time, the brand is partnering with technology company, Blippar India and introducing a ‘Cadbury Joy Deliveries AR (Augmented Reality)-enabled Gift Box’, using which people can bring their virtual personalised messages to life. This gift box will be available exclusively on Amazon. The brand will also promote this campaign through use of digital animated screens and heart-shaped balloons attached to some of their billboards.

It’s not surprising that Mondelez tries to make the best use of this season. According to Prashant Peres, Director Marketing (Chocolates), Mondelez India, this time of the year sees a spike in sales. In fact this year, shares Peres, the sales figures have turned out to be even better than last year’s Diwali sales, which usually tends to be the biggest month for the chocolates division. That said, Peres is hopeful that the coming Diwali will be even more lucrative than this February.
 

This year’s Valentine’s Day campaign will entail multiple TV associations, digital, outdoor and in-store activations and samplings, along with the TVC. While TV still sees the biggest investments, Peres shares that the brand is continuing to increase its spend on Digital, as well. “While TV is our biggest medium, over the years, the contribution of Digital has been increasing significantly. While Digital won’t see the maximum spends from us on a brand like Silk, it is catching up fast.” For this year’s campaign, the brand will also be integrating with social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and will launch a special filter on Snapchat; all with an aim to reach out to youngsters, which still remains its primary TG.
 

Moreover, the brand is finally giving e-commerce a big push. “One of the channels we now focus on for all our new launches is e-commerce. We have also launched a few brands on e-commerce first, to create excitement and word-of-mouth. And e-commerce is one channel where we have to win because the way consumers are living, shopping and interacting is changing every day. And we want to be on the forefront of that change. If we want to build a powerhouse of a snacking business online (and the ambition is to reach the $1billion target globally), India has to play an important role in it. That’s what we are working on currently; on driving penetration for our products online, and making consumers put at least one bar of our chocolate into their shopping baskets. That’s our current endeavour on e-commerce,” says Abhishek Ahluwalia, Business Head, eCommerce India, Mondelez International.
 

The brand recently launched a new 5Star variant, 5Star 3D with another Ramesh-Suresh TVC. It had also launched Cadbury Fuse in September 2016. As per Peres, both the offerings have been working fairly well for the brand, despite being priced slightly at a premium, in the bar segment. So are consumers now willing to pay more for a brand that has historically been available in the Rs 5-10 range? “Consumers surprise us. While our research has shown that consumers are willing to pay a premium, we were surprised in terms of how much more we sold than we originally planned. Despite being in the Rs 30 range, our product still offers better value when you compare it to rival products at the same price. Fuse has also been working very well. The bar segment has been dominated by 5Star, but it’s a segment that hasn’t seen much innovation over the years. We want to be the ones who bring in new products and new excitement. However, a lot of it comes at a bit of a premium. We have two great products in the Rs 30 range and we are really excited about both.”
 

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