HISTORY IN THE KRAFTING

– Daryl Fielding, Kraft Foods Europe

WORDS: Liv Morgan

Before going any further, the elephant in the room needs to be dismissed. As a Brit, raised in Bournemouth, I ask Daryl Fielding, Vice President of Marketing in Kraft Food Europe, if she could justify the outrage the UK felt at Kraft’s take over of Cadbury. “As a Brit I can empathise with regret about a British company being bought but I also think Kraft cherishes brands like Cadbury; I can say this as I’m seeing it from the inside, they’re incredibly proud of the Cadbury brand.

“And I’m incredibly proud to work for a company run by a woman. Irene Rosenfeld is an awesome business leader. She’s surprisingly good fun, I say ‘surprisingly’ because they see her in the press as serious but she is very jolly and has a great sense of humour. I wish her treatment in the UK would have been more generous really.”

Now almost two years on from the union, Rosenfeld has announced plans to divide. The media pounced, tempers frayed and smug assumptions cast — chocolate and cheese don’t go together so well afterall! Has the integration failed? “Not at all is the answer to that. If you look at what the new company will comprise of: There will be the North American grocery business, which is a $16 billion business and has a slightly different investment profile, from a fast-growing global snacks business that is $32 billion; Of that $32 billion the former Cadbury brand will be about a third of it so two thirds will be brands like Oreo, Yakult, Toblerone et al… There’s no question that the business is being split back into Cadbury and into Kraft brands.”

With rumours extinguished, Daryl is happy to talk more shop. Kraft have been leading marketing innovation most recently through the creation of a new personalised software worth half a million dollars. “Using our existing consumer data to populate the software it analyses the information, then gives you a task profile which will indicate where you might want to focus your energy or investment; Not just which media channel, it covers people being aware of the brand, encountering the brand, understanding and exploring the brand, how they buy the brand, how they consume the brand and how they share information about the brand and information about its role. It’s cutting edge and it’s in the process of being piloted."

Read more about Daryl Fielding in in the Autumn 2011 issue of WMB, on newsstands from September 1st!