Snack maker Mondelez International is adopting a new generative artificial intelligence tool to reduce the cost of producing marketing content. According to Jon Halvorson, senior vice president of global consumer experience at Mondelēz, this AI tool can reduce advertising production costs by 30% to 50%.
The packaged food maker has been developing the tool with ad agency Publicis Groupe and IT firm Accenture since last year and expects it to support TV ad production as early as next year's holiday season and potentially for the 2027 Super Bowl.
Mondelēz, the maker of Cadbury chocolate, has invested more than $40 million in the AI tool. Halvorson said the cost savings will increase if the tool can produce more complex videos in the future. Facing tariff pressure and shrinking consumer budgets, consumer goods companies including Mondelēz are actively adopting AI to reduce fees paid to advertising agencies and speed up the development and launch cycle of new products.
Competitors such as Kraft Heinz and Coca-Cola are also trying to use AI for advertising creation. Coca-Cola released an AI-generated holiday ad in 2024, but the computer-generated characters were criticized by some consumers for lacking real emotions. In contrast, Mondelez has not yet used real-life images in AI-generated content.
Mondelēz has already applied this AI tool in the social media marketing of Chips Ahoy cookies in the United States and Milka chocolate in Germany. For example, an eight-second Milka ad video shows chocolate ripples covering a wafer, with the background changing depending on the target audience. Halvorson points out that animation used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but now it's much less expensive.
In the U.S., Oreo will roll out the tool on Amazon and Walmart product pages in November. In the coming months, Mondelēz also plans to promote Lacta chocolate and Oreo in Brazil and Cadbury in the UK. Tina Vaswani, the company’s vice president of digital enablement and data, stressed that human employees will always review content generated by AI tools to avoid errors. Mondelēz has established rules that strictly prohibit highlighting unhealthy eating habits, vaping, excessive consumption, emotional manipulation and the use of offensive stereotypes, according to documents released by the company in Chicago.