• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, March 8, 2018

Snack-food giant Mondelez confirmed today that it is in the midst of a global media agency review and recently finalized the North American portion of the review. It has split the assignment between Publicis Media's Spark Foundry and digital specialist VaynerMedia. 

The North American review began late last year. Previously Mondelez worked with Dentsu’s Carat in North America, following a 2015 review. Prior to that, Starcom Mediavest Group handled the Mondelez media business in the region. SMG has since been reorganized. Spark Foundry is one of its successor agencies. 

Mondelez spent a whopping $1.248 billion on advertising in 2017, according to its latest annual report. And that’s down about 20% from the $1.542 billion it spent in 2015 -- the result of what it termed “continued cost reduction efforts” for both advertising and consumer promotion costs. 

In response to query, a Mondelez rep replied: “We launched a global media review as our current assignments are coming to an end. With this review, we’re taking a new look at our media buying in order to address key changes such as programmatic, transparency and eCommerce and better equip our company for the future. We recently finalized the review in North America.” 

The company is now conducting media assessments in Asia, Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Europe, the rep said.   

VaynerMedia and Mondelez have done business on several fronts. In 2015, Vayner bought a mobile startup called Betabox that evolved  from a Mondelez-backed incubator program in partnership with Prehype, a venture development firm. 

Betabox enables brands to target product samples at specific consumers by distributing through e-commerce partners. It engages sample recipients with a mobile platform that brands can customize to promote content, special offers and social sharing incentives.

The digital platform also enables brands to measure the effectiveness of their product sampling campaign. 

The Mondelez rep indicated that the company intends to complete the current media review process by sometime in the third quarter.