MARKETING UNLOCKING GROWTH & ACCELERATING INNOVATION

In Episode 12 of Marketing Dividends presented by the AANA, Mondelēz International’s Managing Director Australia/New Zealand, Amanda Banfield, outlines the company’s strategy in building innovation partnerships to accelerate faster across analytics, ROI, digital and social media. To this end, the company has built an innovation centre in Melbourne.

Over the last six months, Mondelēz introduced a global program called ‘Mobile Futures’. The company partnered with five start-ups which operate and think outside the corporate paradigm, and push the boundaries and explore new mobile technologies as marketing tools.  “It has been an amazing experience for our marketers to actually work with entrepreneurs who think completely differently. For example, in the space of mobile marketing, it’s actually opening the marketers’ eyes to what’s going on out there and how fast it’s changing,” Ms. Banfield said.

Video: Full Episode

Video: Episode Highlights

Part of the increasing role for marketing is upping the ante in innovation but this takes time and doesn’t necessarily translate immediately within the immediate financial year.  Ms. Banfield details how the company has a three-year growth plan for each of their categories and how the team explore what growth is needed from the core businesses and what contribution innovation has to make.

“We have to build a three-year innovation pipeline and measure its sufficiency. As in next year, is there enough in that funnel and is it going to deliver against the growth that we need? We hold our team accountable to that in their goals for the year. They’re not delivering the innovation until next year, but this year they need to be on track with that project so it’s big enough, on time, and delivers,” Ms. Banfield said.

According to Ms. Banfield, growth is everyone’s accountability but it is really marketing’s responsibility to think ahead and lead the charge.

“Marketers are the ones who sit down and work out category by category what are the big growth opportunities, which brands are we going to prioritise and which technological platforms do we really think we should be focusing on to continue to win. Marketing is the part of the organisation that will lead the business and make opportunities come to life,” Ms. Banfield said.

Watch more episodes of Marketing Dividends and subscribe to the AANA YouTube Channel.