Mondelez: Kraft's New Name is Puzzling to Most, Obscene to Some

Kraft, the giant food company that makes Cadbury, Oreo, and Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts amongst hundreds others, is rebranding itself.

That in itself is not that unusual. Companies rebrand themselves for various reasons - usually to hide from bad reputations (in Kraft's case, it's because the company is splitting itself into two different parts).

What is unusual is its choice of name: Mondelez. Actually, there's a macron (a horizontal straight line that goes above a vowel to connote a long vowel sound) above the second e. But I can't find that on my keyboard. So, in short, it's pronounced "Mohn-dah-LEEZ."

Diana Brady of Bloomberg Businessweek explains:

Think what you will of Mondelez International, the new name that Kraft Foods (KFT) will slap on its global snacks business after the company splits this year, at least it’s not “Tfark.” That was one of the 1,700 names suggested by more than 1,000 Kraft employees during the five-month process of soliciting ideas.

For Kraft spokesman Michael Mitchell, “Tfark” is a personal favorite. “I’m not sure what it means,” says Mitchell. “I just liked the way it sounds.” He submitted “Snax” as part of what he likes to call “the co-creation process” but admits he “was told it’s not a good name.”

Mitchell explains some version of Mondelez—pronounced “Mohn-dah-LEEZ”—was suggested by two employees in different parts of the world. The first was Johannes Schmidt, a 35-year company veteran working in information systems in Vienna. The other was Marc Firestone, Kraft’s general counsel and someone Mitchell describes as “a real renaissance man,” based at the company’s headquarters in Northfield, Ill. Both came up with the idea of playing on the notion “delicious world.”

Delicious world - get it? The Italian "Mondo" (or the French "Monde" and the Spanish "Mundo") for "world" and the made up word "deleez" which is short for "delicious."

It sounds like a company that makes latex products, according to some people, but that's not the worst of it. Kate MacArthur of Crain's Chicago Business wrote why the name may make Russians snicker:

“What they say is perfectly true,” confirmed Irwin Weil, professor of Russian language, literature and music at Northwestern University.

“There is a rather vulgar word, ‘manda.' (Mondelez) includes the sound of that word,” he said, adding that Kraft “had no idea when pronounced it means a Russian vulgar word.” The second half of the name roughly translates into the sex act, say Russian speakers.

So, what do you think of the name change? (Oh, and if you were wondering about the image, that's Peanut Butter Doug, the stunt double for Mr. Peanuts)


companies often come up with clever marketing names for spin-off products. this is clearly not one of them, and is destined to be mentioned in a Neatorama "Terrible Brand Names that Almost Existed" feature 25 years down the line.

"Mondelez" doesn't sound remotely food-like. to me, it sounds like the name of a second-rate, off-Strip Vegas hotel.
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There is almost no way to name ANY international product without it meaning "old c*ck" or "hooker" in at least one language.

That being said, the new name sucks; -but my stock portfolio has got its pom-poms out for any and all spinoffs.
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The thing with Russian happens all the time. Know the Mitsubishi Pajero? Pajero in Spanish means wanker. Nokia Lumia? Lumia is one of many synonyms of prostitute in Spain.

You just can't control that, you can't know every word in every language.
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'Marc Firestone, Kraft’s general counsel and someone Mitchell describes as “a real renaissance man,” . . .'

Funny they should mention renaissance, since I thought Mondelez(a) sounds like Mona Lisa.
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Im surprised nobody pointed out the obvious english issue. With my limited Spanish / French I can certainly decipher "monde" as world but Lez? I have no knowledge of that.

Now what does Lez mean on the Internet ? Hmmm...
So this ... "World of Lez "?

Nope I got nothing :-|
(poker face)
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That name will not last for very long. Kraft's PR department will review all of the online banter and report back that most of the comments involved how stupid it was to pick an name no one could type on a computer.
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I really wonder if Tfark (besides being an anagram for Kraft) was suggested by someone from Drew Curtis' amazing "Fark.com". TFark could be a "Total Farker", who pays a small subscription fee to see articles before they make it to the main page.
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?

Wikipedia's list of unicode codepoints is your friend. Well, my friend.

I wonder if they thought of the millions of Canadians raised on Kraft Dinner first. That tradition runs deep in Canada, even deeper than retelling the story that they burnt down the US Whitehouse once...
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This new name is kind of stupid. Mondelez does not make me think of a delicious world. It is a phonetical nightmare, you can't just take a French root and a French looking ending throw an accent over it and have everything be fine. It's a nonsense word and sounds stupid. "é" is not the right accent, this one is "?"
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