The New Content Economy.

Mondelez, the world’s largest snack company, gives four tips to maximize content and distribution on social media.
Jan McQuillan
April 3, 2015 - 4 min. read

ClickZ’s annual conference is in Times Square this week, with two days of digital marketing best practices from companies like Google, Coca-Cola, Century21, AT&T and more. Laura Henderson, who works in US Media and Communications at Mondelez International, led quite a forward-thinking panel called “The New Content Economy,” which introduced its internal ad studio for social media. The Mondelez ad studio is set up to maximize the company’s content and distribution strategy.

The panel asked, “In a world of more channels and more content, how can brands truly connect with the right audience at the right time?” The Mondelez ad studio addresses this head-on, with a strategy in place to produce a high volume of efficient, culturally-relevant content.

Mondelez is the world’s largest snack company (the portfolio includes Oreo, Honey Maid, Cadbury, Nabisco, Ritz, and many more). Naturally, its sheer amount of products needs a sound strategy for social. The company is known for its social maturity, with leading strategies like real-time marketing (years later and Oreo’s dunk-in-the-dark campaign is still the real-time marketing example par excellence!).

Mondelez’s ad studio uses a four-point strategy Laura called “the four new laws of content” to guide its creation and distribution. Let’s take a look at these tips alongside some of Mondelez’s most successful social media campaigns.

#1: Content is the Strategy, Not an Execution 
As the digital environment shifts, Laura said, her goal is to find the balance between message-led content and context-led content. This means, some ads might be product shots. Some ads might hijack the news of the day. Her job is to find that balance, and set up a content production schedule from there.  

This balance is a strategy. The execution is the careful, data-driven distribution of this content.

#2: Build for the Audience
What does your audience care about? Know thy followers, Laura preached. This will advise your content, and you’ll find engagement will spike once you start providing content your audience already has an affinity for. Use social media tools like social listening to find what these affinities and trends are, and jump into their conversations. Using a tool will also help your distribution–a listening tool will tell you where your audience is talking, where it is most active.

The Sour Patch Kids team knew its teen audience loves music. So from there, the brand dreamed up the idea of the “Patch House.” Mondelez purchased a house in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn for bands to stay in while in New York–a home away from home while they are on the road. Traveling musicians are granted the crash pad in exchange for pictures and content for the candy’s social channels. This also lends the candy brand credibility it otherwise might not have, with instant access to cool, emotional connections for their intended audience.

The popular indie band Deer Tick (pictured below) has stayed in the Brooklyn Patch House. The Austin Patch House opened in time for this year’s SXSW.

content distribution social media

Indie band Deer Tick were one of the bands to stay in the Brooklyn Patch House

 #3: Post Little and Often
Attention is the new currency. The average attention span is reported to be at the lowest it has ever been–eight seconds. This is even lower than a goldfish’s attention span.

Let’s think about that. Our average attention span is now lower than goldfish.

So how can anyone capture an audience’s attention in this world of tiny attention spans and the infinite scroll?

Post little, and post often, Laura says.

Let’s look at Mondelez’s own numbers. The Mondelez studio has produced a total of 130 pieces of video content in the past year. From this content pool, they have achieved 12 million video views–three times their best average. In addition, they’re seeing completion rates of upwards of 90%–meaning that the videos they are posting are useful to their audiences. Fans aren’t clicking out (and remember, these are ads)!

If you combined the production and media cost of their traditional video advertising, they are seeing less than half of their average CPM. All told, the “post little, post often” distribution strategy has been highly efficient for Mondelez.

#4: Audiences are Up for Rent
Paid media is not a setback. Huge, highly-targetable audiences are now available to marketers, and if you are smart, you will target the right communities with the right content at the right times.

Know that audiences are up for rent, and devise your strategies from there.

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