Dive Brief:

• Mondelez International, the packaged foods company that owns brands including Oreo, Ritz, Chips Ahoy!, Belvita, Cadbury, Trident and more, has named marketing agency Scrum50 as its e-commerce agency of record, according to a press release shared with Marketing Dive. 
• The company worked with Scrum50 on projects throughout 2018, including an Amazon-specific launch for Trident Vibes and seasonal back-to-school and Halloween programs for multi-pack snacks, Oreo, Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish brands. 
• Scrum50 operates in the e-commerce space, with a focus on Amazon marketplace, according to the release. The agency has created e-business programs for luxury beauty and fragrance brands, Gerber Naturals Baby Formula, Conair, Welch’s, Revlon, Elizabeth Arden and others. 

Dive Insight:

Naming Scrum50 as its designated e-commerce AOR points to how important e-commerce is becoming for Mondelez as well as for the consumer packaged goods sector more broadly. Mondelez said the agency was selected for its expertise in Amazon marketplace as evidenced in past efforts. Mondelez is clearly working to ramp up e-commerce across its brands as consumers, especially millennials, do more of their grocery shopping online. Amazon commands 30% of online grocery spending in the U.S., according to a Brick Meets Click survey cited by Supermarket News. P&G has also been pushing aggressively into e-commerce with new packaging, acquisitions and key partnerships and other marketers in this sector are similarly focused on establishing closer relationships with consumers through online sales. 

Teaming up with Scrum50 will allow Mondelez to tap into a trove of product category and shopper insights that can help the company better understand its consumer base and deliver more personalized messaging. The news comes as Mondelez has already been bringing an e-commerce element to recent marketing campaigns. For example, Oreo debuted a miniature, cookie-powered turntable around the holidays that played pre-recorded songs when a mock record needle is placed over one of the brand’s cookies. Consumers could also record custom messages on the music boxes. The limited-edition item was packaged in a tin with a selection of cookies and was available on Amazon. Oreo announced a relaunch of the turntables as part of its new partnership with musician Wiz Khalifa. Fans can sign to win one of the music boxes online at Oreo.com. 

In 2016, Oreo introduced a branded website, gifts.oreo.com, to offer direct-to-consumer gifts around the holiday shopping season. Mondelez said the site was part of its efforts to grow e-commerce revenue by at least $1 billion by 2020 and become an e-commerce leader in the packaged foods space. 

Along with the new e-commerce AOR, Mondelez in August added WPP’s GroupM to the list of agencies that it works with following a review.