Mondelēz is scaling up its sports marketing by going more regional

Athletes move quickly, but Mondelēz International moves quicker—at least when it comes to sports marketing.

About a month after the conclusion of the World Cup, the food and beverage giant, which owns brands including Oreo, Ritz, and Clif Bar, announced a pair of new sports deals: one with the Kansas City Chiefs, the company’s first pro football team sponsorship, and another spanning five NCAA programs.

The deals signify something of a new era for Mondelēz’s broader sports strategy as the company pushes further into regional partnerships to beef up its already massive national and global presence in sports.

“Now, it’s about…making sure we’re meeting those expectations in how people are communicated to [based on] what kind of mood state they’re in when their teams are playing,” Nick Rogers, director of portfolio marketing and sponsorships at Mondelēz, told Marketing Brew. “We’re having that bespoke, at-scale approach, driving frequency with our national campaigns, but then really cutting through on a comms level from a regional perspective. That’s what retailers expect. That’s what fans expect.”

Chiefs kingdom

Across their sports sponsorships, Rogers said his team strives to reach all areas of the US and multiple generations. The Chiefs, with marketing strategies aiming to win over children in addition to just about everyone else, fit that bill.

While the Chiefs mark Mondelēz’s first tie-up with an NFL team, the brand has for years been involved in pro sports, and Rogers said a partnership with Inter Miami CF, which was announced last year, helped hone a general strategy for how the brand targets sports fans.

Though football is the most popular sport in the US, that’s not the only reason for Mondelēz’s involvement.

“It doesn’t necessarily need to be the No. 1 and 2 sports in the country,” Rogers said. “It’s what that audience is passionate about, and if they’re passionate about it, they come together as families. That means they’re having watch parties, that means they’re tailgating, and that means, naturally, the presence of our brands on people’s snacking tables for decades will always be there. We need to make sure we’re honing in on those audiences.”

Get schooled

College teams can have a similar level of devoted generational fandom, which is part of the reason Mondelēz announced on Aug. 25 that it’s now serving as the official snacking partner of the University of Arkansas, University of Florida, University of Michigan, University of Southern California, and the University of Texas at Austin.

Rogers and his team selected the schools in part based on areas where they think the partnerships will have the most impact on sales, he said, as well as the fact that they’re in alignment with some of the company’s prior work in college sports. Mondelēz has an ongoing relationship with USC women’s basketball star JuJu Watkins, for instance, which will continue along with the broader program deal.

“That means we can target people outside of basketball but then also use her as the face of our basketball plans for March Madness,” Rogers said. “If you have the pillars in place with the federation, i.e., NCAA, and then you really pad that out with our talent and schools, it means across all touchpoints, across multiple age groups, we can be communicating our brand messages.”

The new school partnerships include additional NIL deals, like one with Texas Longhorns wide receiver Ryan Wingo. The roster of Mondelēz brands will have a presence across multiple college sports occasions, Rogers told us, with a focus on the big ones: football and March Madness hoops.

More than a feeling

The types of activations will vary based on the specific teams and games, but generally speaking, Rogers said his team is looking into showing up at tailgates, setting up player appearances, giving away tickets and merch, and offering product samples at games.

Ultimately, the goal is to not only leverage sports for “global commercials,” he said, but also to cater to more specific audiences with messages tailored to their general moods no matter the sport.

“Having these all-year-round partnerships really allows us to flex through seasonal or occasion-based moments,” Rogers said. “You can’t go out with a positive football moment all the way through to November, December. If a school lost the last six games, but if they’re excited and there’s hope about their basketball program, that’s up to us to then change our messaging.”