Mondelez Deploys Generative AI To Cut Marketing Production Costs by 30-50%
Oreo and Cadbury parent Mondelez has built a new generative AI tool to slash the time and cost of content production. Early results point to a 30-50% reduction in spend for assets that previously ran into six figures.
Developed with Publicis Groupe and Accenture, the system is aimed at producing short-form TV spots by next holiday season. Mondelez has invested over $40 million and says the savings should grow as the tool handles more complex video.
According to the company, the AI could even support work for the 2027 Super Bowl if quality thresholds are met.
What It's Doing Today
The AI is already generating social content for Chips Ahoy in the U.S. and Milka in Germany. One eight-second clip shows a brown wave flowing over a wafer, with backgrounds adapted to the target profile-work that typically costs hundreds of thousands to produce.
In the U.S., Oreo will use the tool to refresh Amazon and Walmart product pages starting in November. A wider rollout is planned for Lacta and Oreo in Brazil and Cadbury in the U.K.
Why Marketing Leaders Should Care
- Production economics change: 30-50% savings unlock more variants, faster cycles, and more tests per dollar.
- Speed compounds: creative goes from weeks to days (or hours), which tightens the brief-produce-learn loop.
- Personalization without bloat: modular assets and AI animation scale across audiences and channels.
- Competitive parity: peers like Kraft Heinz and Coca-Cola are also moving on AI-led advertising; sitting still is a choice.
- Partner model matters: Mondelez paired an agency (Publicis) with an IT integrator (Accenture) from day one.
Guardrails and Brand Safety
Mondelez says it does not use human facial likenesses in AI content. Every output is reviewed by humans to prevent errors and off-brand messaging.
Internal rules ban content that promotes unhealthy eating habits, vaping, excessive consumption, emotionally manipulative language, or offensive stereotypes. If you're building similar systems, bake these rules into prompts, templates, and QA checklists-not just policy docs.
How To Apply This Playbook
- Set a clear cost target (e.g., -40% per asset) and tie it to a reinvestment plan (more variants, higher media, or both).
- Start with short, modular formats (6-15s animations, cutdowns, cinemagraphs) where AI shines.
- Pick partners with complementary strengths: creative systems (agency) + integration and data (IT/consulting).
- Standardize templates: intros, pack shots, product pours, supers, CTAs-swappable by audience and channel.
- Stand up a human review lane: brand, legal, scientific/regulatory (where relevant), plus accessibility checks.
- Codify exclusions: no facial likeness, no risky claims, no stereotypes; require rights and consent for all inputs.
- Measure what matters: cost per asset, time to live, variant count, lift per variant, and media efficiency gains.
- Plug into ecommerce: automate PDP image/video refreshes and A/B testing for retailers like Amazon and Walmart.
- Roll out by region and brand: pilot with one SKU, then scale by playbook-not by heroics.
- Plan for TV readiness: build a pipeline for broadcast compliance, audio mix, color, and final delivery specs.
- Maintain an approved asset library (fonts, palettes, packs, claims) to keep outputs on-brand.
- Upskill your team: prompt craft, AI art direction, and QA. Don't outsource taste.
Key Numbers
- 30-50% reduction in production costs.
- $40M+ invested to build the tool with Publicis Groupe and Accenture.
- Short-form TV ads targeted for next holiday season; potential runway to the 2027 Super Bowl.
- Live uses: social content for Chips Ahoy (U.S.) and Milka (Germany).
- Next up: PDP updates for Amazon/Walmart in the U.S., plus deployments in Brazil (Lacta, Oreo) and the U.K. (Cadbury).
The takeaway: treat AI as a production system, not a novelty. If you pair clear guardrails with tight operations, you get cheaper assets, faster learning, and more shots on goal-without eroding brand trust.
If your team needs a structured path to upskill on AI for marketing, explore this program: AI Certification for Marketing Specialists.
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