Cadburys India to be known as Mondelez

On October 3, 14 employees of MondelezInternational from five continents joined their chairman and CEO Irene Rosenfeld to be part of the opening bell ceremony at the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York to mark the second day of trading under the company's new ticker symbol MDLZ.

One of those 14 was Nikhila Rangaswamy, VP for people and talent at the Indian operation, which till recently was known as Cadbury India and which is now migrating to the new identity.

In early 2010, Kraft Foods had acquired British candy maker Cadbury in a deal worth close to $19 billion.

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Then, on October 1, 2012, Kraft's snacks business - which includes brands such as Cadbury, Tang and Trident - was spun off into Mondelez; the flagship company will be left with the grocery portfolio, which includes such brands as Philadelphia cream cheese and Maxwell House coffee.

Rangaswamy may have been part of the name-changing ceremony in the West - Rosenfeld also hosted her along with the remaining 13 for lunch the same day - but back home there's frenetic activity under way to make a seamless transition to the new platform.

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Late last week, Cadbury India had an internal employee event across its head office, factories and sales offices at which employees were introduced to the new company, its vision and focus.

Employees wearing purple Mondelez T shirts attended the event and Anand Kripalu, president, India and South East Asia, addressed employees across India through a video conference.

The Mondelez theme song was played with the management and employees singing along and a cake was cut to mark the occasion.

Employees contributed an item that was auctioned and the money collected for an NGO as part of the Joy of Giving Week celebrations; the 'joy' theme coincides with Mondelez's endeavour to offer "delicious moments of joy," explains a spokesperson for the Indian operation of the snacks giant.

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"There will be no change whatsoever in the names of any of our products as Mondelez International is the overarching corporate identity and will ultimately appear on the back of the pack. There will be no change in branding practices for Cadbury in India," a company spokesperson said.

What the Indian operation is trying to convey is that the overarching brand name may have changed but what haven't the values and associations embedded in it.

Market strategy consultant Rama Bijapurkar explains that brands are like people and, if a person changes her name - she has to tell her friends and acquaintances that she is the same person; only the name has changed.

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But Cadbury has to communicate this to consumers. "Change the name and you have to make a lot of special effort to convince everybody that nothing else has changed except the name," points out Bijapurkar.

A former head of Cadbury at a regional level who does not want to be names adds that "the monies being spent on India by Mondelez are getting bigger. I do not expect the Mondelez name change to make any difference to Cadbury's brand equity (for the worse), especially in Commonwealth countries."