A long-time partner of the Summit of the Americas, Mondelez World Travel Retail (WTR) is making a return to the regional event, for the first time, in a virtual format this year.
Marking another first, the confectionery giant is debuting a new fully immersive 360-degree digital experience at the summit, which the company promises will “delight, excite and inspire” all Summit visitors.
“We are also excited to take this virtual opportunity to debut our new digital home,” says Mondelez WTR Head of Global Sales Carlos Granados Moyano. “This new digital environment will share more about our trusted brands, sustainability initiatives, future plans and how we believe we can work with our partners to help lead recovery.”
In this interview, Granados Moyano discusses the key features of Mondelez’s spectacular virtual showroom, the importance of the Americas region and the confectionery giant’s approach to recovery. He also shares his insights on how COVID-19 has changed value perceptions among confectionery customers and what Mondelez WTR is doing to meet changing demands and drive category growth.
“Our ‘Snacking Made Right’ ethos is about leading in this dynamic sector by offering the right snack, for the right moment, made the right way,” he says. “By leveraging Mondelez International’s experience, impressive brand portfolio and innovation pipeline, we are looking to drive growth in this sub-category in travel retail by meeting all snacking needs with a comprehensive offering.”
Finally, Granados Moyano talks about Mondelez WTR’s commitment towards sustainability and how agility, adaptability and cooperation will help the travel retail industry emerge from the crisis stronger together.
What is the major focus for Mondelez at the Summit of the Americas – A Virtual Experience? What lines, launches or campaigns will you emphasise and showcase?
As a proud long-standing supporter of the Summit of the Americas and the work of the regional associations, Mondelez World Travel Retail (WTR) is reinforcing our commitment to driving recovery and restoring confectionery category growth in the region through our participation.
We are also excited to take this virtual opportunity to debut our new digital home. Intended as a complement to physical meetings and events once they inevitably return, we have plenty for visitors to explore. This new digital environment will share more about our trusted brands, sustainability initiatives, future plans and how we believe we can work with our partners to help lead the recovery.
We have maintained our ambition to delight travellers through the substantial scope and scale of popular in-store activations. In creating experiences that are unique to our channel, we can further improve value perception to the traveller. However, as travellers are likely to to spend less time shopping in stores, effective signposting of confectionery and enhanced visibility from outside of store will drive key metrics such as footfall and conversion.
We have strengthened our core of best-selling products to cater to travellers looking for heritage brands they trust and for products they intimately know and relate to.
For example, the packaging of Toblerone’s popular Tiny bags will be been redesigned to improve distinction and value perception. Our consumer tests have shown that it has substantially improved appeal to consumers. In addition, we will also introduce the new bar-bundle range with an optimised flavour mixes and out-of-pocket price.
These initiatives and portfolios are being showcased through a virtual adventure that we truly hope will delight, excite and inspire the visitors to our stand.
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Tell us more about your ‘snacking made right ethos’ and the three key principles for unlocking confectionery category growth as they will play out in 2021?
Snacking already plays a very important role in consumers’ lives in global domestic markets, with six in ten adults worldwide prefer to eat many small meals throughout the day.
Considering the time spent out of home and routine while travelling, airports are the perfect environment for snacking. This existing demand is now increasing amongst travellers due to limited convenience and reduced access to food services as a result of safety measures and restrictions.
Our ‘Snacking Made Right’ ethos is about leading in this dynamic sector by offering the right snack, for the right moment, made the right way. By leveraging Mondelez International’s experience, impressive brand portfolio and innovation pipeline, we are looking to drive growth in this sub-category in travel retail by meeting all snacking needs with a comprehensive offering.
In your opinion, what role will the confectionery sector play in the recovery of the travel retail channel in 2021 and beyond?
Confectionery is a highly impulse-driven category with universal appeal; clearly there is an opportunity for the category to play a compelling role in the recovery of the channel.
When shoppers return to the channel, we know they will seek out familiar and trusted brands, particularly for gifting, so we would see an iconic brand like Toblerone having major appeal in this scenario.
As part of our overall strategy for driving recovery, we’ve looked at how we can enhance our approach in-store. We’re increasing our visibility in-store by applying merchandising best practices which help shoppers navigate the offer on shelf more quickly and effectively, while communicating our bold offers to improve value perception and increase responsiveness to purchase.
How important is Americas travel retail to Mondelez’s business today? What growth and expansion prospects do you see in the region?
The Americas region has always been an important area for our travel retail business; and a number of our brands have very strong equity with consumers in specific countries or sub-regions, such as Milka in Brazil.
The region will continue to be important moving forward. Clearly this is a challenging time to be making projections, but overall the region does present opportunities, primarily tied to the ongoing upgrading of airport facilities in North America, new facilities being built to further economic development in South America and the increasing investment in border stores.
What is the role of sustainability in Mondelez’s current business? Could you tell us more about your ongoing environmental and ethical sustainability initiatives?
At Mondelez WTR, we are committed to delivering on corporate-wide and industry-specific pledges to offer products that are not only right for travellers, but also right for the planet.
Our key areas of focus include the ingredients for our products, with 99% of our travel retail chocolate product portfolio currently using cocoa that is sourced sustainably through our Cocoa Life programme. In addition, the majority (93.3%) of our packaging is already designed to be recyclable, whereas Toblerone has already achieved the 100% recyclability target.
Within the travel retail environment itself, we are tracking, upcycling and repurposing existing POS material to prolong life and encourage circularity while also innovating with new technologies to reduce our environmental footprint.
We are also excited about our collaborations with strategic partners on a few industry-specific initiatives that we believe will help to progress more sustainable practices within in travel retail.
We’re also looking at in-store activations and how they can be made more sustainable. Travel retail is a channel with very specific in-store activation requirements, for good reason. However, we believe that we can help to role model in-store activation practices that are kinder for the planet.
We have already taken a number of steps to reduce our environmental impact in this arena and are collaborating closely with our industry partners to achieve better results not just for our own improvement, but as an example to the industry.
How do you view the continuing impact of COVID-19 on Americas travel retail and the wider industry?
The impact of COVID-19 continues to be sorely felt across the region and the wider industry. In the Americas we’re in close dialogue with our partners and monitoring the situations at key locations very closely.
What we’ve seen thus far is that recovery will not be uniform but will move at different speeds in different locations. What is key is that we remain agile enough to ensure that as pockets of recovery emerge, we are present, and ensuring that confectionery plays its role in accelerating that recovery.
How do you think the channel can and should engage with travelling consumers to ensure a sustained recovery?
We need to reflect the changes in consumers’ reality, experiences and concerns. Value perception is more important than ever before and we need to ensure that we work together to deliver in this respect. As an example, a thorough and comprehensive assessment of our Cadbury bag and pouch range has led us to a refreshed price-pack structure that ensures our offer reflects the new reality.
We believe these changes can further drive the cash velocity that these products can deliver. Rebuilding trust is an important element in the recovery process, which makes travel retail’s number one confectionery brand, Toblerone, an ideal candidate to encourage travellers to visit duty free stores again.
How would you like to see industry partnerships evolve as we enter a new era for travel and travel retail?
Throughout all stages of channel recovery, the most important thing is that we find ways to maintain the dialogue and strategic partnerships within the industry.
In the long term, we will need to retain the channel’s distinctive nature by creating shopping experiences that are unique to travel retail to ensure we emerge #StrongerTogether.
As for the foreseeable future, agility, adaptability and cooperation will remain important as consumer needs keep evolving. We need to stay in close and regular contact with our industry partners and keep scanning the horizon for opportunities together.
