Mondelez International is reviewing its creative assignments at the holding company level, according to people familiar with the matter.
The move by the maker of Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers, Trident gum, Cadbury chocolate and Sour Patch Kids puts a number of holding companies on notice. Mondelez has worked with a range of agencies across multiple holding companies, including Interpublic Group of Companies' FCB and Martin Agency, WPP's Ogilvy and Dentsu Aegis' McGarryBowen and 360i.
"We're constantly reviewing our practices and partnerships to ensure we're fit for the future. With a new growth strategy and a new operating model, we're putting digital at the center of our marketing approach and are in the early stages of evaluating our structure," Mondelez said in a statement to Ad Age.
Mondelez is the world's 91st largest advertiser, according to the latest information from the Ad Age Datacenter. Its total ad spending fell 10.6 percent to nearly $1.25 billion, or 4.8 percent of sales, in 2017.
Under CEO Dirk Van de Put, who joined the company in late 2017, Mondelez has been shifting its marketing focus. Martin Renaud was named global chief marketing officer in March 2018. Along with Renaud, who came to Mondelez from Danone, Mondelez has four regional CMOs. The $26 billion snack maker has also been putting more of a balanced approach in place to support both its global and local brands, rather than emphasizing the global ones.
In 2018, Mondelez selected Spark Foundry and VaynerMedia to handle its North America media business, then subsequently moved on to review its global media business. In August, Mondelez said it had finalized a comprehensive media review for global regions and had chosen Spark Foundry to handle media in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia and China; GroupM's Wavemaker and Mindshare to handle media in India, Australia, New Zealand and Japan; split the European region between Wavemaker and Carat; and kept Latin America with Spark Foundry.
Mondelez is based in the United States (it's planning to relocate from suburban Deerfield, Illinois, to Chicago next year) but does the bulk of its business internationally. Europe is its biggest market, followed by North America, then Asia, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America.
