GLOBAL: Innovation at Mondelēz International, the snack foods giant, encompasses everything from working methods to products and requires marketers to "think ahead in a fearless manner", a top executive has told Warc.

Dana Anderson, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Mondelēz International and chair of the judging panel for the 2017 Warc Innovation Awards, explained that this attitude was essential, given the pace of change in the market and in channels. (For more details, read Warc's exclusive report: How change creates growth at Mondelez.)

Nor is it just external factors that influence marketers' mindset. She noted that her team had spent the last year embracing Ehrenberg Bass and Byron Sharp's Laws of Growth (download a complimentary copy of Warc's event report: Byron Sharp on 'How Brands Grow', five years on), which was forcing them to look at marketing through a new lens.

"We changed our strategic tools, media guidelines, how we do comms planning and how we brief agencies," she said. "Change can mean more work but it makes you feel like you are on the fresh end of things and that can be enlivening for a group."

In addition, "The work that we're doing on content monetisation means that we want to be out there and trying new things".

If that all sounds daunting, Anderson is keen to avoid simply being reactive in the face of change and to encourage new engagement models with partners. "You don't criticise someone else for not stepping up if you don't do it yourself! We developed a way of working through Fly Fearless," she said.

This is Mondelez's new approach to creative marketing. "We piloted it and now have been working it out for smaller brands and it has meant we have been able to reduce the amount of time [spent working with creative agencies on campaigns] from 52 weeks to 20 weeks," Anderson reported.

"Everyone is around the table at the same time and there are ground rules such as having a strategy before you start … That's a form of innovation that anyone can take on."

The 2017 Warc Innovation Awards are free to enter and there is a $10,000 prize fund for the winning papers. The deadline for entries is 26 January. Other judges include Hugo Pinto, Innovation Services Leader EMEA, IBM Interactive Experience, Andrew Lambert, Vice President, Consumer Marketing, Visa Asia Pacific and Bill Cecil, Director, Silicon Valley Office, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.

Full details and entry forms are available on the Awards website.

Data sourced from Warc