File photo: Snack maker Mondelez uses new generative AI tools to reduce marketing content production costs by 30% to 50%. |Photo provided by: Reuters
Snack maker Mondelez is using new generative AI tools to cut marketing content production costs by 30 to 50 percent, a senior executive told Reuters.
The packaged food maker began developing the tool last year in collaboration with advertising firm Publicis Groupe and IT firm Accenture.
John Halverson, Mondelez’s global senior vice president of consumer experience, said Mondelez hopes the tool will allow it to create short TV ads that could be aired as early as next year’s holiday season and as early as the 2027 Super Bowl.
Halverson said Cadbury’s chocolate producers have invested more than $40 million in the tool, adding that the savings would increase if the tool could create more elaborate videos.
Facing tariffs and shrinking shopper budgets, Mondelez, like other consumer goods companies, is turning to AI to cut fees it pays advertising agencies and speed up the time it takes to develop and sell new products.
Rival companies like macaroni and cheese maker Kraft Heinz and Coca-Cola are also experimenting with AI in advertising. Coke in 2024 ran an AI-generated holiday ad, but the computer-generated characters in it were derided by some consumers for lacking real emotion.
Mondelez has yet to include human likenesses in its AI-generated content.
The company is using content generated by new tools on social media for Chips Ahoy Cookies in the U.S. and Milka Chocolate in Germany. Milka’s eight-second video shows waves of chocolate rippling on a wafer, with different backgrounds depending on the consumer Mondelez is targeting.
The cost of producing an animation is “in the hundreds of thousands,” Halverson said. “This type of setup is orders of magnitude smaller.”
In the US, Oreo plans to use the tool on Amazon and Walmart product pages in November. Halverson said Mondelēz plans to use the tool in the coming months for Lakuta Chocolate and Oreo in Brazil and Cadbury in the UK.
Tina Vaswani, the company’s vice president of digital enablement and data, said humans will always check what tools produce to avoid accidents. Documents shared by the Chicago-based company say Mondelez has rules that prohibit highlighting unhealthy eating habits, vaping, overdosing, manipulative language and the use of offensive stereotypes.
issued – October 25, 2025 9:44 AM IST
