One of the world’s most eminent marketers, Dana Anderson, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Mondelēz International, says innovation at the global snack foods giant encompasses everything from working methods to products and requires marketers to “think ahead in a fearless manner”.
Dana Anderson explained that this attitude was essential, given the pace of change in the market and in channels. Nor is it just external factors that influence marketers’ mindset. She noted that her team had spent the last year embracing Ehrenberg Bass and Byron Sharp’s Laws, which was forcing them to look at marketing through a new lens.
“We changed our strategic tools, media guidelines, how we do comms planning and how we brief agencies,” she said. “Change can mean more work but it makes you feel like you are on the fresh end of things and that can be enlivening for a group.”
In addition, “The work that we’re doing on content monetisation means that we want to be out there and trying new things”.
Anderson is keen to avoid simply being reactive in the face of change and to encourage new engagement models with partners. “You don’t criticise someone else for not stepping up if you don’t do it yourself! We developed a way of working through Fly Fearless,” she said.
This is Mondelez’s new approach to creative marketing. “We piloted it and now have been working it out for smaller brands and it has meant we have been able to reduce the amount of time spent working with creative agencies on campaigns from 52 weeks to 20 weeks,” Anderson reported.
“Everyone is around the table at the same time and there are ground rules such as having a strategy before you start … That’s a form of innovation that anyone can take on.”
Dana Anderson will chair the upcoming Warc Innovation Awards 2017, which recognise and reward innovative thinking that delivers tangible results. Four more judges have recently been appointed, bringing the eminent judging panel of client and agency-side experts to 21. The newly appointed judges are:
Nurcin Erdogan Loeffler, Head of Strategy & Innovation, Vizeum China
Bruce Henderson, Chief Creative Officer, Jack Morton Worldwide
Andrew Lambert, Vice President for Brand, Product and Sponsorship Marketing, VISA
Felix Morgan, Senior Planner and Innovation Lead, Livity
Lucy Aitken, Case Study Editor at Warc, says, “We are delighted to bring together such an outstanding jury panel from around the world for this exciting global competition to award the best of effective marketing innovation. As brand marketing evolves, the combination of innovation and effectiveness has never been more crucial.”
The annual global Warc Innovation Awards are free to enter and open to any country and any communications discipline. There is a $10,000 prize fund for the winners of effective marketing innovation. As well as the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards and Grand Prix for the best overall paper, five Special Awards will be selected for the best papers in specific areas of excellence: Innovation in a product or service, Channel innovation, Category innovation, Co-created innovation, and Innovation in a not-profit-campaign.
