Published 14 July 2014 12:30, Updated 16 July 2014 10:25
Taylor Luk of Issue, Vernan Williams of Snaploader and Myron Festejo of Myshout. Photo: Cole Bennetts / Getty
A handful of Australian mobile technology start-ups have been enlisted by the global food giant behind Cadbury and Kraft to help market its products on booming mobile devices.
Mondelez International is part of an early wave of global brand owners trying to build direct alliances with tech companies in their marketing programs instead of using traditional advertising formats. The company wants to spend 10 per cent of its traditional global media budget in mobile; most multinationals are spending about 1 per cent at present.
The local start-ups, which include Snaploader, Issue, Proximiti, SkyFii and MyShout, have been tasked with a rapid consumer deployment of their mobile applications and technology in the next 90 days, some of which are already being eyed for global roll-outs. Mondelez assessed the tech companies’ mobile products and determined they could be adapted to help market its food products. MyShout is a mobile application that allows users to buy their friends food and drinks via smartphones, while Snaploader uses image recognition to connect images instantly with related content.
Mondelez sells 8 billion products every month around the world and wants to use its scale and marketing clout to back emerging technologies that lure consumers into digital programs which benefit both Mondelez brands and aspiring tech players.
The Mondelez Mobile Futures program in Australia is part of a broader push by brand marketers to address a growing problem of skyrocketing consumer mobile device usage, which traditional advertising is struggling to exploit.
One of the early tech partners in the US start-up program that Mondelez launched last year, Waze, was later bought by Google for an estimated $US1.1 billion. Australia is the third market in the world targeted by Mondelez for its start-up initiative. The company also wants to use the agility of start-ups to force its slower-moving corporate structures to modernise.
“In 90 days from now, these pilots will go into market after our brand teams have spent time in the start-up offices and have worked out the right articulation,” Mondelez Australia’s head of marketing services, Anthony Ho, says.
“It was pretty interesting to see the stereotypical pimply faced, straight out of university propeller-hat wearing kid is a bit of a myth. We saw people that might have been on their second or third phase of their careers.”
The five local start-ups were selected by Australian brand teams from 60 applications across Cadbury Dairy Milk, Philadelphia, belVita breakfast biscuits, Cadbury Favourites and Marvellous Creations for the program.
Comments