Mondelēz targets micro-occasions to drive digital commerce growth

Brands can design pack formats around the occasions shoppers are searching for.

Mondelēz International is looking beyond major calendar events to target more specific consumer occasions as it seeks to drive digital commerce growth, according to Kenneth Lau, global digital commerce excellence lead.

"What we started to do was to look beyond those tentpole events in the calendar to look at micro occasions,” Lau told Retail Asia Summit 2026 in Singapore.

Lau said brands have traditionally focused on major occasions such as Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, and Diwali, but smaller occasions can create additional opportunities in digital commerce.

He cited a snacking box designed around an evening occasion when families or friends are watching a movie. The product was positioned specifically for that use case rather than as part of a broader grocery basket.

Lau said this approach also changes how consumers search online. “We're talking about people who are searching for afternoon snacks for my kids, you know, snacks that can go with my lunchbox, picnic snacks,” he said.

These category-specific searches allow Mondelēz to develop price pack architectures suited to particular occasions, he said.

The company has also partnered with Meituan, a quick commerce platform in China, to use shopper data to identify micro-occasions and develop relevant campaigns for Oreo.

Lau gave the example of an afternoon tea break in an office, where Mondelēz identified the specific products relevant to the occasion and designed campaigns around them.

“This has actually allowed us to recruit more new users, and also get a lot more repeat purchases, because we're going after what consumers and shoppers are looking for,” he said.

Lau said digital commerce has become increasingly important as the post-pandemic online shopping boom has faded and competition has increased across channels including social commerce, quick commerce, live commerce, direct-to-consumer and agentic AI.

He said digital commerce accounted for about 41% of sales in 2026 but contributed 61% of growth.

“Digital commerce is growing a lot faster than offline and disproportionately contributing to growth as well,” Lau said.

For brands looking to sustain growth, Lau outlined three approaches: doing fewer things by being precise about audiences and occasions, doing things better through optimisation, and doing things bigger through larger bets that leverage existing strengths.

He said micro-occasions form part of the first approach, where brands are “very precise in the audiences, in the occasions that you're going after.”

Lau also pointed to Cadbury Silk in India, where a Valentine's Day campaign linked a chocolate gift with 10-minute delivery. He said this created an opportunity around “urgent gifting”, including last-minute Valentine's Day or Christmas gifts.

For Mondelēz, he said the broader opportunity is to use digital commerce not only as a sales channel but as part of the wider brand and consumer journey.

“Whatever you're doing online is actually driving growth offline, and building a brand at the same time,” Lau said.