How Snacking Brands Turn Sports Into Spending

This post was created in partnership with Ibotta

Live sports draw some of the largest audiences on the planet, and every watch party is a chance for snack brands to win the grocery basket.

During an ADWEEK House Sports Summit fireside chat co-hosted with Ibotta, Sara Wallace, head of brand marketing at Ibotta, sat down with Justin Parnell, SVP of marketing and insights at Mondelēz International, and Chris Dungan, VP of client partnerships at Ibotta, to discuss how brands connect cultural moments to real performance.

Standing out on the field and in-store

For a leading snacking company like Mondelēz, live sports are what Parnell described as a “critical moment of consumption.” They let brands be present with consumers and their families as they gather to enjoy their favorite sports and snacks. Stretching five weeks, the World Cup offered a long runway to sustain that relationship.

“We can have a continuous pulse of always being on with our consumer,” Parnell explained. “We partnered with celebrities. We had one-of-a-kind special experiences that fans and consumers were able to win, and we did special limited-edition packs and flavors all focused around the World Cup. That really helped us win in store.”

As consumers get more conscious about discretionary spending, brands find new ways to stand out.

“We spend a lot on displays and merchandising in store to ensure that we are getting that really valuable shelf space,” Parnell said. “And then where Ibotta comes in, we overlay specific coupons against the right audiences and incentives to ensure that we are closing that deal.”

From his bird’s-eye view at Ibotta, Dungan sees brands leaning in on promotions as a way to meet consumers where they are. “It’s not just with these cultural moments and sporting events, but all the time now, just making sure we’re putting the right offers to help deliver on consumer needs,” he observed. “We’re seeing a tremendous uptick in overall engagement with promotions right now.”

Real relationships, real loyalty

One example of that current engagement and promotions approach is SnackWorks Perks, a rewards program Mondelēz recently launched with Ibotta. Spanning Mondelēz brands from Oreo and Chips Ahoy to Ritz and Sour Patch Kids, the platform rewards consumers for buying across the portfolio. The goal is to drive frequency and loyalty over time.

In contrast to the vast Ibotta Performance Network, through which Mondelēz can reach hundreds of millions of consumers with strategic offers, SnackWorks Perks is a more bespoke platform for building personalized relationships with consumers who opt in.

“We’re learning from those consumers, and we’re building better relationships with them,” Dungan explained. “We’re seeing environmental things, like high-fiber trends and high-protein trends, and all of that data begins to show up in the understanding that we’re capturing in this network’s program.”

Such rich insights open up a new world of precision marketing. “Gone are the days of blanketing the world with one big message,” Parnell said. “We’re getting very specific: What is the consumer’s shopping behavior, what is their challenge, and how do we reach them in the most relevant way?”

Leveraging Ibotta’s transactional data, Mondelēz can build unique audiences—loyal buyers, for instance, or shoppers leaning toward competitors—and tailor offers accordingly.

“We can actually tailor our messages in a more direct and impactful way through the value of data,” Parnell concluded. “Ibotta is one of the partners that we are working closely with to unlock and unleash that capability.”