Oreo Manufacturer, Mondelez, Uses New Generative AI Equipment To Cut Marketing Costs

JAKARTA Mondelez's snack producer is now taking advantage of a new generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool to cut marketing content production costs by 30% 50%.

The packaged food company began developing this tool last year with advertising company Publicis Groupe and IT Accenture company. Mondelez estimates this tool will be able to create short-form TV ads that are ready to air next year's holiday season. "Even this has the potential to be used for the 2027 Super Bowl event," said Jon Halvorson, Senior Global Vice President for Consumer Experience, Mondelez, quoted by VOI from Reuters.

The Cadbury chocolate producer has invested more than $40 million for the project. According to Halvorson, savings will increase as the capabilities of this tool produce more complex videos.

Facing lower import rates and consumer purchasing power, Mondelez is like many other consumer goods companies trying to take advantage of AI technology to cut costs paid to advertising agencies and accelerate the process of developing and launching new products.

Competitors, such as Makaroni and Kraft Heinz cheese manufacturers and beverage giant Coca-Cola, are also starting to use AI for advertising. Coca-Cola, for example, ran an AI-based holiday advertising campaign in 2024, although a number of consumers criticized the computer-made figures for being "less excited".

Mondelez insists that it does not use human facial similarities in content created by AI. Currently, the company is using the production of the tool for promotion on social media including chips Ahoy biscuits in the US and Milka chocolate in Germany. One eight-second video shows a brown wave flowing over the wafer, with an adapted background based on its consumer target profile.

"The cost of making such animations usually reaches hundreds of thousands of dollars," said Halvorson. With this tool, the cost is much smaller.

In the United States, Oreo will use the AI tool to update its product pages at Amazon and Walmart from November. Mondelez also plans to use it in the coming months for the Lacta and Oreo brands in Brazil, as well as Cadbury in the UK, added Halvorson.

Tina Vaswani, Vice President for Digital and Data at Mondelez, stressed that humans will continue to review any AI production results to prevent errors. The company also has strict rules prohibiting content highlighting unhealthy eating habits, vaping, excessive consumption, emotional manipulative language, as well as the use of offensive stereotypes, according to internal documents shared by the Chicago-based company.