While direct-to-consumer (DTC) isn’t any longer seen because the marketing panacea it once was — especially through the peak pandemic period — the sales channel can still be useful to CPG marketers as a part of an omnichannel strategy. That is the case for Mondelēz and its flagship cookie, Oreo.
“We approach DTC as a tool for creating closer connections to our consumers and learning from them. It enables us to check new products, marketing strategies, engagement tactics and pricing models,” said Kamila DeMaria, director and general manager of DTC at Mondelēz, via email.
To enhance its capabilities, Oreo this yr selected digital commerce agency Goodness as its DTC agency partner. The partnership evolved out of Goodness’ previous work to migrate Oreo from Adobe’s Magento e-commerce platform to Shopify to enhance efficiency and user experiences.
“Shopify, and the tools that it unlocks, lets a brand like Oreo behave more like a digitally native brand and compete on that level,” said Ethan Martin, strategy director at Goodness. “That’s what the Oreo team specifically was after, and what Mondelēz is hoping to unlock across the entire portfolio.”
Uniting DTC and equity
Goodness’ work was two-fold: constructing a new e-commerce system that could possibly be scaled across Mondelēz’s portfolio that will be efficient enough to outweigh the high cost of going direct to consumer, and opening up new opportunities for the brand’s OreoID customization platform.
“[With OreoID] we actually had our likelihood to optimize, make something that was more modern, fun, sleek and funky and that seems like a dashboard, and really attempt to greatly reduce customer support calls and greatly increase conversion rate for each step,” said Donald Fierros, chief operating officer at Goodness.
The work also allowed Oreo to sell retail packs and limited-edition flavors through its e-commerce shop for the primary time, opened up the flexibility to raised integrate brand campaigns and unlocked the chance for a deeper partnership with Goodness.
“There was opportunity with Goodness’ skill sets and the match between DTC and equity sides of Oreo where their goals are different,” Fierros said.
Experimenting with data
Since coming on as an agency partner in Q2 of this yr, Goodness has worked to attach internal systems that it hopes will eventually allow for Oreo to deploy fully personalized communications that enhance engagement and conversion for DTC. Nearly half a yr into its relationship with Oreo, Goodness has iterated on OreoID and is working to attach ad, media and CRM data to the e-commerce site. And despite its legacy bona fides, Oreo sees itself as an innovator around data within the space.
“The advantage that Oreo has is that they’ve this massive pillar of retail sales that is the core of their business,” Martin said. “It gives them real room to experiment and leverage their DTC platform in a way that perhaps a digital brand can’t.”
Building and experimenting with a more connected data infrastructure through DTC can be key to Oreo’s needs on the equity side of its business around the way it captures zero- and first-party data at every consumer touch point. Those imperatives are prone to persist, irrespective of what Google’s plans for third-party cookies portend.
“Building direct relationships with consumers through compelling value exchanges is on the very core of Oreo’s marketing transformation agenda,” said Hamish Stacy, senior manager and U.S. Oreo consumer data lead, via email. “It sets the inspiration for developing a sustainable competitive advantage when applied to empathy at scale across our paid and owned ecosystem.”
That data may even be key in training the corporate’s generative AI infrastructure, Stacy explained. Mondelēz International in September announced the launch of a new platform supported by Accenture and Publicis Groupe that seeks to raised harness the emerging tech.
Understanding conversion
For marketers, collecting data is one thing. Making sure the data is priceless, understanding what has been collected and generating insights is a more complicated proposition. Goodness helps the Mondelēz data team make sure that data flows in a single direction, in the identical funnel and into the identical storage.
“That way, we do not have to depend on these big third-party tools to know the data. We can understand the data on our own, and so can the teams at Mondelēz,” said Fierros.
CRM has increasingly develop into a spotlight for Oreo, because it has throughout the marketing industry. Goodness helps Oreo take into consideration what first-party data it will possibly gain by asking customers about their favorite products, limited editions and campaigns. The agency can also be supporting Oreo’s efforts to find out which zero-party data it will possibly glean from its online platforms (e.g. which content themes best drive web traffic). If done appropriately, all of this data can assist inform media strategy.
“Our conversion metrics won’t necessarily be sales. They will rely upon the challenge, like list growth or data enrichment,” Fierros said. “We’ve got a couple of North Star metrics that we’re driving to, but we do must consistently take a look at attribution methods to be sure that every one among those North Star metrics is being tracked in a consistent way.”
For Oreo, constructing and operating a stronger data infrastructure will help it support its ambitious goals around acquisition, activation and evaluation that Goodness can assist it achieve, Oreo’s Stacy explained.
“To reach our ambition we heavily depend on the expertise of agency ecosystem partners and their ability to work collaboratively with one another and always challenge, break, and rebuild ways of working,” the chief said.
Read the total article here
