Kraft Heinz's Approach to Omnichannel Growth and Collaborative Excellence

In today's digital age, the omnichannel approach is pivotal for suppliers, retailers, and shoppers. Aiden Wang, Country Lead, eCommerce at Kraft Heinz New Zealand exemplifies how they are reinventing their approach to omnichannel marketing by investing significantly in e-commerce. Collaboration, both internal and external, is a cornerstone of their strategy, partnering with technology companies for competitive advantages.

Scroll below for an exclusive infographic covering the key pillars in planning an omnichannel strategy where understanding that online complements in-store sales are crucial components and adopting new technologies like AI for content production and utilizing collaborative KPIs to drive efficiency and save costs. Afterall, Kraft Heinz has experienced substantial growth by implementing an omnichannel plan, showcasing the success of a holistic, agile approach.

1. Moving at the speed of culture and engaging with your customers more deeply, how is Kraft Heinz reinventing its approach to omnichannel marketing?

When shaping Omnichannel strategy, we still put retailers and consumers at the center - what do they have, what can they do, what do they want? These questions really helped us to define what we offer and what we do. For example, in order to drive retailer partnerships, you will need to understand what’s important to them, and where the barriers are, then come up with a mutual-beneficial plan. Investing in retail media is a great starting point to understand the usage of retailer’s website in our total marketing plan, what we can do to influence online consumer behaviors, and how we can further strengthen the relationship with the retailer.

Compared to 2020, Kraft Heinz NZ has invested 400% more on e-Comm, and we are expecting a larger amount to invest in 2024.

2. Collaboration is essential to growth, but how is it a true competitive advantage in Kraft Heinz’s case with regards to choosing a tech stack?

Kraft always partners with the best technology companies to advance our competitiveness, in Omni-channel it is no different. For example, we partner with different agencies to measure our online content presence, content quality, as well as tracking the full shopper journey. We then bring them altogether for open discussion around how to utilize the analyses that each partner did. We always have an open mind around sharing cross-functionally and it is vital in the Omni-channel world.

It is important to approach collaboration, especially internal ones, with agility and a big picture in mind - no two days are the same in the digital world, but we also need to let other functions go hand in hand with us. With these two elements we were able to make meaningful impacts but still keep minimal changes on ways of working.

One great example is that we implemented omni-channel plan in our biggest launch of the year, pre the event, we partnered with cross-functional team, agencies, and retailers to work on a holistic agile plan with sample data to ensure the delivery of the campaign, the campaign result exceeded more than 20% of the target, not only for e-Comm, but for all other functions as well as the retailer.

3. You are speaking at this year’s Digital Food & Beverage event. Can you share what the audience can expect to hear from you and what excites you about this event?

I am going to discuss with the audience on ANZ grocery retail landscape, and their strategy as well as capabilities on e-Commerce, and share a case study on how to plan for an Omni-channel strategy with agility, and the success of the Omni-channel execution.

Personally I am super excited about the 2024 event. Not only will I meet digital leaders in the industry and bounce ideas off each other, but I will also be able to meet some best tech providers to potentially help me to break down my current business barriers. I look forward to meeting you in Singapore.