{"id":357,"date":"2020-11-29T13:33:04","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T13:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commsnews.com\/?p=357"},"modified":"2021-01-13T06:43:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T06:43:18","slug":"how-mondelez-found-its-true-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/?p=357","title":{"rendered":"How Mondelez found its true purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"

On day one of Spectra 2020, an online conference on reputation management, Russell Dyer, VP & Chief of Communications & Government Affairs, Mondelez International, shared the brand\u2019s story on building corporate purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n

The global snack giant led the audience on a journey to identify a purpose that would bind all its brands towards a common goal. Dyer unfolded the story of how Mondelez recognised its corporate purpose through intensive internal and external listening and learning, over the last two years. He shared how they arrived at the eventual purpose of \u2018Snacking made right\u2019 and how it was globally internalised.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dyer said, \u201cAs an organisation, we are a company built through mergers and acquisitions. The brand came with legacy cultures and systems, identities, rituals and routines.\u201d Finding a purpose that resonates with all employees is a significant hurdle, he added. Among the other challenges was identifying a purpose that will come to life at the brand level across Mondelez\u2019s varied categories. Also, being a global brand, it was necessary to be as relevant in China and India as it is in Canada and the UK. The biggest hurdle of them all, he said, was the fact that it all had to be done in four months!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Doing it right<\/b><\/p>\n

To begin with, Mondelez decided to listen and learn, spending a major portion of the four months analysing data.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe dug deep on corporate reputation insights, we benchmarked our peers and competitors in the share-of-voice to understand how we fit in the food and beverage landscape. We did deep dives with our talent acquisition teams to understand new employees and why would they come and work for a company like ours,\u201d he explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

Internally, Mondelez looked at data that included three years of global engagement service to identify the employees\u2019 perception of the company. On the consumer side, Mondelez identified a universal consumer insight \u2013 people didn\u2019t want to choose between snacking and eating right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mondelez International\u2019s purpose, its universal statement it now would rally on was hence identified as empowering people to snack right or \u2018Snacking Made Right\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe boiled it down to three main pillars. It\u2019s about offering the right snack for the right moment made the right way,\u201d said Dyer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard from consumers that they want a bite of chocolate, they want a delicious morsel but they want to do it mindfully. We know we have an opportunity to help influence that behaviour through portion control and communicating the benefits of mindful snacking. We have made some global commitments in that space,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within the organisation, the brand launched the purpose strategically. Starting with a global townhall, the brand held workshops where 250 global leaders presented what the vision and purpose meant to them and their teams.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEach of the 250 leaders wrote a letter \u2013 \u2018<\/span>20 years from now, how are you going to make a difference in contributing to this vision?<\/span><\/i>\u2019 Further, we wrote one on behalf of the organisation to the future that lays out the change we want to make. That letter is something we use internally to rally colleagues. It has been this purpose in our voice, not just the corporate communications\u2019 voice but the leaders\u2019 and people\u2019s voice and it has been a real point of pride and inspiration for the organisation,\u201d Dyer said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He added, \u201cCorporate purpose can be a corporate story, an organising theme and the way you express your ESG agenda but when it is happening at a brand level and a consumer level in brand authentic ways, as a house of brands, you start to feel like a cohesive unit in a way you never have before,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning the right lessons<\/b><\/p>\n

Towards the end of his presentation, Dyer pointed out three lessons learnt through the purpose-building exercise.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Touch the tension: For a slight discomfort to be in the business.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Don\u2019t \u2018overbake\u2019: Stories evolve gradually and answers cannot be reached overnight<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Measure what you treasure: Purpose-building is a communication exercise unless the dimension and the drivers are folded into business metrics and business scorecards alongside profit and revenue<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On day one of Spectra 2020, an online conference on reputation management, Russell Dyer, VP & Chief of Communications & Government Affairs, Mondelez International, shared the brand\u2019s story on building corporate purpose. The global snack giant led the audience on a journey to identify a purpose that would bind all its brands towards a common goal. Dyer unfolded the story of how Mondelez recognised its corporate purpose through intensive internal and external listening and learning, over the last two years. He shared how they arrived at the eventual purpose of \u2018Snacking made right\u2019 and how it was globally internalised. Dyer <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-event-coverage","category-spectra-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commsnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}