Mondelez World Travel Retail (WTR) revealed its fresh vision for growth in the confectionery category this month.

The Cadbury, Toblerone and Oreo maker revealed the ‘elevated vision’ at a breakfast event attended by TRBusiness at the Hôtel Barrière Le Majestic during the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference in Cannes (2-6 October).

Mondelez WTR’s approach focuses on three key areas: a winning portfolio to address growing need states and changing shopper preferences; elevating category awareness through more physical and mental touchpoints; and delivering unique experiences with outstanding and significant concepts.

It builds on its ‘Delighting Travelers’ vision, launched a decade ago, to attract ‘more shoppers, more spend and more often’.

Delighting Travelers emerged from the need to address critical challenges of stagnant footfall, basket sizes and conversion.

In the years since, Mondelez WTR has supported initiatives to increase confectionery’s visibility with better signposting and engaging POS; unlocking cross-category opportunities and multiplying confectionery touchpoints (including at the cash till area); introducing successful segments like biscuits and snacking; and bringing more engagement to stores with activations in spaces previously reserved for other categories.

Multiple touchpoints, new segments, relevant products

During the event, Anna Szentivanyi, Customers Insights, Strategy and Activation Director at Mondelēz International and one of the chief architects of the ‘Delighting Travelers’ strategy, shared insights about the development of that very vision 10 years ago.

According to Horizon, between 2012 and 2018 the confectionery category grew by 60% in airports alone.

Penetration has increased by five percentage points, with more than two hundred million additional travellers visiting the category.

Among several addresses at the event, attendees heard from Beatriz de Otto, Head of Customer Marketing at Mondelez WTR.

She outlined how the new category vision will come to life via multiple touchpoints, new category segments, and relevant products.

“The Mondelēz International team has analysed global trends and enriched them with data and insights from travel retail to deliver an evolved category growth vision to share with you,” she said.

“While we are happy to celebrate our success and see how the role of the confectionery category has advanced, we acknowledge that we left some growth opportunities only partially fulfilled, and we clearly see new, emerging opportunities.

“Our evolved category vision will increase our precision and speed to progress accelerated conversion.”

Jaya Singh, Managing Director, Mondelez WTR, commented: “Looking back on a decade of such extraordinary hard work, growth and innovation, I could not be prouder of what we have achieved together.

“As we did 10 years ago, Mondelez WTR is extending an official invitation to our partners and the wider industry to join us, once again, on a journey. We will once again be the driving force behind the change. We are here to listen, to collaborate, to inspire, and to achieve accelerated conversion – together.”

Clive Jones, President Central Europe, EU Central Sales, WTR, Global Licensing, Mondelēz International, added: “It is incredibly rewarding to witness the fruits of the changes that Mondelez WTR has driven with our retail partners to alter the travel retail shopping environment.

“As category leaders, Mondelēz International remains committed to investing in and supporting the travel retail industry, which plays such a crucial role in the wider Mondelēz International business, and to continue driving the growth of confectionery in such a hugely important channel.”

New edge for Toblerone

In related news, Mondelez WTR has launched the limited edition Toblerone Golden Caramel 360g bar.

Featuring new-look packaging, the innovation boasts caramelised white chocolate with honey and almond nougat, adding to the existing original milk, dark and white editions of the best-selling travel retail chocolate brand.

The new sku made its travel retail debut at the end of September with a high-profile activation running through October at Madrid-Barajas Airport in Spain.

The space resembles a maximum security safe and challenges travellers to retrieve a bar from the vault to maximise engagement while highlighting the premium value of the new flavour.

Positioned in a glass case, etched and edge-illuminated, it creates the illusion of laser security.

The bar resembles a standard 360g Toblerone, but it has been weighted to increase the difficulty of the challenge.

“It is incredibly rewarding to see travellers so drawn to the new limited edition Toblerone Golden Caramel 360g bar, with such an immersive and exciting in-store activation,” explained Dogus Kezer, Marketing Director at Mondelez WTR.

Behind the bar is Toblerone’s new brand identity, ‘Be More Triangle’.

This encourages adventurous types to ‘embrace their edges’ in unity with Toblerone founder Theodore Tobler.

Additionally, distinctive brand assets have been introduced to reinforce ‘the brave new purpose and bold ambition’ of the brand.

“We will continue exciting consumers by bringing news to Mondelez WTR’s winning portfolio to drive accelerated conversion for the growth of confectionery category,” added Kezer. “The new Toblerone is not only golden in appearance but in terms of how it is unique, bold and special – which is exactly what the new brand identity is about.”

Mondelez WTR says that by combining a new Toblerone iteration with a refreshed identity, it is aiming to recruit new, younger travelling consumers to both the brand and the category, thereby lifting penetration.