Dive Brief:
- Mondelez International has announced the eight startups selected for its Shopper Futures program, which combines the efforts of these startups with major retailers and Mondelez's brands such as Oreo, Ritz, and Trident, to innovate consumers' retail experience, particularly in the context of current and emerging technologies.
- With more consumers attached to their smartphones while they shop, Mondelez hopes to find ways to capitalize on that technology through ideas born out of this retail-focused program, which could create new product marketing methods.
- These innovations might also lead to an increase in impulse buys for online orders, which are traditionally less likely to include the candy and other snacks consumers might pick up at an in-store register.
Dive Insight:
In terms of impulse buys, "It's easier to find and be tempted by products that can be touched or tried on. But as shoppers shift their spending to the Web, traditional retailers are missing out on these impulse buys in the digital space," CNBC said in March 2014.
Innovations from Shopper Futures could focus on how to bring back impulse buys, losing out on these sales due to online ordering, self-checkout, and other retail technologies that get between consumers and those impulsive bite-size purchases.
But impulse buys are just the beginning. In-aisle marketing technology and packaging innovations are two other crucial developments that could come out of this program, at a time when packaged foods companies need more help to boost sales and maintain growth.
With this program, Mondelez is fostering a startup mindset in a large company that is not as nimble as the smaller companies it might look to for potential sales growth. Some acquisitions are not just about the products themselves but also about the startup mentality that larger food companies can emulate.