Why should marketers do sales roles? Let us ask Mondelez India’s Nitin Saini

In May 2023, Nitin Saini, Mondelez India’s vice president (marketing), will complete 20 years of working with the company. Mondelez India owns brands like Cadbury Dairy Milk, Cadbury Silk, 5 Star, Bournvita, Oreo, etc.

Saini was picked up as a management trainee from IIM Calcutta in 2003. He spent about three years in field sales, which, according to him, should be an experience for anyone who desires to be a marketer.

“Field sales teach you the realities. You understand the role that consumers and shoppers play to push your brands which is beyond advertising. In the end, when we think of commercial excellence, it is what sales and marketing do together,” he says.

He believes that being on the ground helps to build more empathy towards sales personnel, which is important if a marketer is in the food business. According to him, being in sales also helps in understanding what leads to commercial growth. That’s something that marketers should be picking up as they climb the ladder, he believes.

Saini has worked in marketing and sales teams across different portfolios, building experiences across brands and categories. He worked in both regional and global roles, too. From 2019 to late 2022, he was looking after Mondelez’s iconic brand Oreo, in the US.

In this stint, he was assigned to lead P&L, delivery and marketing. As the VP of marketing for India, Saini is a part of the Mondelez India leadership team and is working on driving the snacks category, with holistic management of all marketing levers that includes insights, analytics, equity, innovation and activation.

Two decades of working in the category could become monotonous for one. However, Saini says he hasn’t felt fatigued to date because he is so soaked in every new role.

Taking care of the jewel in the crown

It is not every day that a marketer gets to work with a 111-year-old brand. In 2022, the worldwide sales of the cookie brand topped $4 billion. Saini calls Oreo the jewel in Mondelez’s crown. He says the brand is successful because of the power of focusing on the core. The brand could drive penetration because it wasn’t distracted.

The philosophy of being “local first, but not local only” has worked well for Oreo. Saini explains, “The idea is to have one positioning but make it culturally relevant. We define the marketing maturity framework, what the market share looks like, and what the brand equity is. Each market doesn’t have to follow the same process.”

Oreo entered India in 2011. It’s part of the company’s premium category. “The only difference is the momentum at which the brand is growing. The rest of it remains the same.”

Getting the fundamentals right

Mondelez India is among the most hyper-active advertisers in the country.

“We are able to crack the advertising code for each of our brands well enough only because we have our got our fundamentals right,” says Saini. According to him, that’s one aspect of marketing which will never change with time.

At the beginning of the year, Mondelez India has a clear mapping of the direction each brand wants to take. It’s layered with deep-dive social listening and insight mining. While the agency partners Ogilvy and Wavemaker are given macro briefings, Saini and the team keep things fluid.

“In modern-day marketing, both art and science are important. While that has been constant for us, we are moving to the next level. For instance, how do we bring alive a concept like personalisation? That was a key piece for us,” he says.

Finding the magic ingredient

Two years ago, Cadbury Dairy Milk created ‘Not Just a Cadbury Ad’, a hyper-personalised spot, featuring Shah Rukh Khan. Using generative AI technology, the ad, conceptualised by Ogilvy India, with Wavemaker as the media partner and Rephrase.ai as the technology partner, allowed small local businesses to make India’s most prominent brand ambassador their own brand ambassador.

It bagged The Titanium Lion Award at Cannes Lions, along with several other global accolades. The brand has been putting technology to the best use for its campaigns in the last couple of years.

From customised festive wishes, using AI, to extending a helping hand to local hawkers using QR codes to set up virtual shops for them, Mondelez has been generous and purpose-led in a diverse market like India.

The marketing successes are like global studies for the company across its other markets. Saini says that it is only possible because of their rock-solid agency partnership.

Mondelez’s India story is special because of the agency partners, Ogilvy and Wavemaker, says Saini. “We do well because our agencies have the hunger to do better with each piece of work. The energy is infectious. The ecosystem that we have is the key ingredient we alone will not be able to do this. They are our magic ingredients.”

Saini says he has laid out a clear vision plan for the company’s categories and a detailed plan on get going with penetration. “We are actively working on how we get more households to consume our products and understand what premiumisation means to each of our categories. We are also deeply trying to understand how technology and digital can drive marketing for us even further. We want to be the pioneers to do industry-first marketing innovation,” he says.

Saini, for now, also has plans to make Mondelez’s marketing team the best in the business and keep the momentum going.