MEET MELISSA, SENIOR MANAGER GLOBAL INSIGHTS EXCELLENCE

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

What is your current role and what makes it exciting?

I lead Digital/Social Intelligence in the Global I&A team. It's exciting to be able to see what consumers are posting/talking about and searching for in real-time - this is a relatively new research area that gives us the ability to keep consumers' authentic voices at the heart of everything we do. This field can also be very challenging - consumers' changing digital behaviors, the rise of new social networks like TikTok, the constant creation of new analysis tools and increased use of AI/text analytics, and the sheer volume of consumer-generated data on search and social media can feel like drinking from a firehose! There is a lot of experimentation plus a constant need to focus on where we can really bring valuable insights for Mondelez brands.

How has your career developed at MDLZ?

I came to Mondelez in 2019 to focus on building our social insights capability. Since that time, we have evolved from a social listening pilot focused on just 20 global brands, to our current setup that monitors conversations about more than 1,000 brands globally. A big part of my role is focused on training/teaching people how to get good value out of social/digital data, and it is very gratifying to see how our I&A teams across BUs have begun to incorporate social insights into their work. Recently we have been working to connect digital and social metrics to other traditional measurements like brand equity, so we can use social/digital data as a pulse-check on how consumers are feeling about our brands, in real-time.

What kind of project, assignments have you done outside of the traditional career moves that helped you further your career?

In 2020 when Covid shut-downs made a huge impact on how we could conduct consumer research, social and digital intelligence became an important way for us to keep track of shifting consumer behaviors and sentiment in real-time. The Global I&A team created a weekly Covid behavior tracking project that included search and social listening analysis, and we could literally see behaviors changing from week-to-week. The hashtag #quarantinesnack became a trending topic on Twitter in one of the early weeks of Covid, as consumers talked about buying a month's worth of snacks and then eating them all in the first few days of lockdown. We saw social media conversations shift to comfort foods, and consumers started to search for recipes to bake their own bread ... and we were able to watch these changes as they happened. It brought a lot more awareness to the power of social/digital data to deliver insights about our consumers that go way beyond tracking brand sentiment.

You have a role open as Senior Analyst in Global Insights & Analytics. What is the role about?

The Senior Analyst will analyze and blend social/digital data (social, search, reviews, web analytics) with traditional business data (market share, sales, penetration, brand equity) to uncover consumer insights that can be a springboard for our brands to drive communication and innovation opportunities. This role will work on projects across our global Insights Excellence team, including brand health, creative excellence, innovation opportunities, and more. It’s an opportunity to collaborate with several different team members and make an impact across multiple areas of the business.

What personal qualities or skills make you successful in this position?

We are looking for a "citizen data scientist" who knows how to work with data, plus also understands the impact to the business and how to tell the story of the data in a compelling way that keeps the consumer at the heart of our business. The Senior Analyst will need experience in data science/data analysis, plus an understanding of the digital/social data ecosystem, including social listening, search, ecom reviews, etc. Data-led storytelling is also important – we are looking for someone who can explain the “so what” for Mondelēz business.

Apply here:Senior Analyst, Global Insights & Analytics, Creative and Innovation Excellence.

How do you describe the culture at MDLZ?

In my experience, Mondelez has a very collaborative culture. There is a lot of willingness to share knowledge, share resources, try new things and experiment - to me, this exemplifies our Grow Every Day mindset. Working in the Global I&A team, I especially enjoy the opportunity to work with colleagues from around the world. I have learned a lot about how our cultures are different, plus how much we have in common. I also really appreciate being able to mostly work from home, which gives me the flexibility to adapt my schedule to global time zones plus to be very present as a parent to my 15- and 13-year-old daughters.

And finally, what is your favorite MDLZ brand?

Of course as a kid I loved Oreos - who didn't?! I still like them now, but as an adult I think my favorite Mondelez brand is LU cookies. I also recently discovered Toblerone with Crunchy Salted Almond, and they are delicious!