Oreo cookie producer Mondelez has developed a new generative AI tool in 2024 together with ad company Publicis Groupe and IT firm Accenture.
Mondelez expects that the tool will be capable of making short TV ads that would be ready to air as soon as next year’s holiday season, and potentially for the 2027 Super Bowl, said Jon Halvorson, Mondelez’s Global Senior Vice President of Consumer Experience.
The Cadbury chocolate producer has invested more than US$40 million in the tool, Halvorson said, adding that savings would grow if the tool is able to make more elaborate videos.
Faced with tariffs and shrinking shopper budgets, Mondelez, like other consumer goods companies, is looking to adopt AI to slash fees paid to advertising agencies, and speed up the time taken from development to selling of its new products.
Apart from Mondelez, major F&B players such as Kraft Heinz and Coca-Cola have also been trying out AI for ads. Coke in 2024 ran AI-created holiday ads, though the computer-created people in them were ridiculed by some consumers for lacking real emotion.
Mondelez however is not yet putting human likenesses in its AI-created content.
It is currently using content generated by the new tool on social media for its Chips Ahoy cookies in the US and Milka chocolate in Germany. A short 8-second Milka video shows waves of chocolate rippling over a wafer, along with different backgrounds depending on which consumer Mondelez is targeting.
Halvorson commented that the cost to do animations is in the hundreds of thousands, however with AI, the cost is slashed significantly.
In the US, Oreo will use the tool for product pages on Amazon and Walmart in November. Mondelez plans to use the tool in the coming months for Lacta chocolate and Oreo in Brazil, and Cadbury in the UK, Halvorson said.
Ultimately, the company will still use humans to check what the AI tool produces to avoid unnecessary mistakes. Mondelez has rules prohibiting the showcase of unhealthy eating habits, vaping, overconsumption, emotionally manipulative language and the use of offensive stereotypes.
