In a keynote talk Tuesday at the Jumptap-hosted Mobile Media Upfront in New York, B. Bonin Bough, VP, Global Media and Consumer Engagement at Kraft, signaled a commitment to shifting budgets at the
CPG giant more to digital and mobile platforms. In part, that's because of the continuing growth of e-commerce. "At the end of the day, shopping is going mobile, shopping is going digital," he
said.
Bough cited Kraft’s partnership with Nokia earlier this year to create a mobile innovation lab as a sign of the increased focus on emerging media channels he’s bringing to
Kraft. “You’re going to see a lot of projects rolling out of that,” said Bough, who served as digital strategy guru at PepsiCo before joining Kraft in February.
Kraft grabbed
attention in the early days of mobile app development with its iFood Assistant app for finding recipes and build shopping lists. Bough said continual iteration was the key to keeping the Kraft app
fresh, most recently integrating functionality with connected TV so users can watch cooking-related videos. He added the iFood Assistant still has “phenomenal engagement” rates because
it’s still centered on utility.
Bough also spoke about building “digital fitness” at Kraft by looking outside the organization for new ideas, emphasizing experimentation and
innovation, and updating the marketing mix in favor of digital media. Whether he actually follows through on shifting marketing spend at Kraft toward mobile and other digital areas, of course, remains
to be seen.