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Mondelez acquires gluten-free Undercover Snacks, Liquid I.V. hires Poppi's former CMO, and Celsius and Maybelline activate at the NYC Marathon's 50th.
Mondelez is buying into better-for-you snacking, Liquid I.V. is importing Poppi's cultural playbook, and the NYC Marathon's 50th is rewriting who shows up at a running event.
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The FMCG Marketing Daily is a concise briefing for FMCG and CPG marketers, brand managers and CMOs, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day.
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Also from Marco & Klara: The Digital Commerce Daily · The Health Marketing Daily
The essential morning briefing for brand leaders in fast-moving consumer goods. Hosted by Marco and Klara — two senior strategists with decades of experience inside global CPG companies and consultancies. Every episode covers retail media and distribution shifts, brand and competitor moves from Unilever, Coke, Nestlé, and challenger brands, and the macro and regulatory forces reshaping the category. Authoritative. Analytical. No noise. Built for brand managers, trade marketers, CMOs, and agency directors who need to stay ahead.
Marco: Three stories on the desk this morning — Mondelez doubling down on healthier snacking, a very smart hire at Liquid I.V., and the NYC Marathon pulling in a bigger brand crowd than ever for its 50th.
Klara: Lots to unpack across all three. Portfolio strategy, marketing talent, and live event sponsorship — it all connects.
Marco: Let's get started.
Marco: Mondelez — the company behind Oreo and Cadbury — has just acquired a majority stake in a gluten-free snack brand called Undercover Snacks.
Klara: To understand why that's interesting, you need to know where Mondelez sits right now. It's one of the biggest snacking companies in the world, built on indulgent, treat-led brands. But consumer habits are shifting — more shoppers are actively looking for snacks that feel a bit better for them. That pressure has been building for years.
Marco: So here's what changed. Mondelez has taken a majority interest in Undercover Snacks — a challenger brand, meaning a smaller, newer brand disrupting the category — that focuses specifically on gluten-free products. This comes in a quarter where Mondelez actually beat profit expectations, helped by easing cost pressures. So this isn't a company in trouble making a desperate move. This is a company with breathing room making a deliberate strategic choice.
Klara: And the choice is telling. Rather than trying to make Oreo gluten-free — which would be a nightmare and probably alienate loyal fans — they're buying their way into the health space through a separate brand. It keeps the core portfolio intact while adding a new lane.
Marco: That's the playbook now for big FMCG players. You don't reform your legacy brands. You bolt on smaller ones that already have credibility with health-conscious shoppers. It's faster, lower risk, and the challenger brand keeps its identity.
Klara: Though I'd question how long that independence lasts. Once a big company owns you, the pressure to scale quickly can strip out exactly what made the brand appealing in the first place. We've seen it happen.
Marco: A fair concern — and one worth watching as this plays out.
Klara: Our next story is up — let's get to it.
Marco: Liquid I.V. — the hydration drink brand owned by Unilever — has just hired the former chief marketing officer of Poppi to lead its marketing.
Klara: For context, Poppi was a fast-growing challenger soda brand that built an outsized following through cultural relevance — community, social media, and a very distinct personality — before being acquired earlier this year. Its CMO was a big part of that story. And Liquid I.V. is now bringing that exact expertise in-house.
Marco: The hire is explicitly about driving what the brand is calling "cultural impact." That's the move away from pure performance marketing — spending money on ads that are purely designed to get clicks and conversions — towards building a brand that people actually talk about and feel connected to. Liquid I.V. is a strong performer commercially, but it's been more functional than fashionable. This signals they want to change that.
Klara: And it makes sense when you look at the category. Hydration drinks are crowded now. Every new brand is promising electrolytes and energy. If your only story is "this product works," you're one shelf decision away from being swapped out. Cultural relevance is what creates preference — the reason someone picks you over the identical product next to you.
Marco: The interesting part for me is the talent flow here. CMOs who've built challenger brands are becoming highly sought-after. They know how to create noise without massive budgets, which is valuable even inside a company like Unilever.
Klara: Though I'd keep expectations realistic. What worked for Poppi — that scrappy, independent energy — doesn't automatically transfer when you're operating inside a large corporation with layers of approval. The playbook travels, but the conditions don't always.
Marco: Worth seeing how much room they actually give her to move.
Klara: Our third and final story is next.
Marco: The New York City Marathon's 50th anniversary is pulling in a noticeably wider range of brands than the race has ever seen before.
Klara: Mass participation running events have always attracted sponsors, but historically the brand mix was fairly predictable — sports drinks, trainers, energy bars. The logic was obvious: reach runners, sell products runners use. What's shifting now is who sees themselves as part of that conversation.
Marco: This year's anniversary edition has brands like Celsius — the energy drink — and Maybelline, which is part of L'Oréal, activating around the event. That's a beauty brand at a marathon. The brand roster overall is more diverse across consumer goods categories than in any previous year. And the 50th anniversary is acting as a magnet — a cultural milestone that gives brands a legitimate reason to show up rather than just buy space.
Klara: The Maybelline angle is the one I find most interesting. Beauty brands have worked hard to associate themselves with strength and endurance rather than just appearance — this is a logical extension of that. The marathon has 50,000 runners and over a million spectators lining the streets. If you can create something people actually experience rather than just see, that's a very different kind of brand contact.
Marco: That's the distinction that matters. These brands aren't buying a logo on a banner. They're building activations — physical experiences on the ground — designed to generate real moments with consumers. The sponsorship is the entry ticket. What you do with it is the actual investment.
Klara: My hesitation is that as more brands pile in, the space gets cluttered. Being one of fifteen brands activating at the same event means you're competing for attention before you've even started competing for sales. Standing out requires a genuinely sharp idea, not just a cheque.
Marco: And the brands that tend to win these moments are the ones that arrive with a clear answer to one question: what do we want this person to feel when they walk away?
Marco: Today's clearest signal — the brands gaining ground are the ones actively reshaping what they stand for, not just what they sell.
Klara: So pick one part of your portfolio and ask honestly: does it reflect where your consumer is heading, or where they used to be?