Cocoon: A Crispy & Thin Journey
The Oreo truly is an awesome thing. Yes, I know taste is subjective and all, but, with over 100 years of market dominance making it the world’s best-selling cookie, I believe there are not a lot of people willing to dispute the introductory claim. The Cocoon ADandPRLab team (Dimitris Balios, Irene Skoufi, Nikos Zampekos and me) certainly agrees with it so, when we were asked to offer creative ideas and an activation plan for the upcoming launch of the Oreo Crispy & Thin in the Greek market, we were very excited to work for such an iconic and beloved brand. Thing is though, we are communication and advertising students. We know the theory (well, more or less) but acting at this scale meant that we had to enter uncharted territory. And it proved to be quite the experience.
First, we focused on the research. What is the size of the Greek cookie market? Who are the main competitors? What is the brand equity Oreo has in Greece? What is the unique selling proposition of the Crispy & Thin? What are the values and lifestyle of our target group? Answering these questions proved easier than we originally thought so the 4 Ps as well as the SWOT analysis came along nicely.
Then it was time for the development of the creative direction. The good news were that everyone had something to add to the discussion. We were coming up with ideas left and right. Some of them were decent, others not so much, but even then it was hard to decide on a specific campaign name, theme and messaging. What’s worse was that no single proposition was considered ideal by every one of us. After much heated debate we settled on an answer and that was the #DelicateWonder campaign.
These two words summarize the dichotomy that defines the Crispy & Thin, in our eyes. On the one hand, it is playful, tasty, spontaneous, imaginative. Just like a regular Oreo, it is wonderfilled. So, by using the word “wonder”, not only do we showcase the Crispy & Thin’s fun side, but we also stay true to the wider brand messaging and strengthen the argument that the Crispy & Thin isn’t an inferior version of the regular cookie. Then we needed a word that differentiated it from the rest of the product line and was relatable to our mostly female, adult target group. An elegant, health-conscious, sophisticated word that displayed a maturity process. That word is called delicate.
With the #DelicateWonder we’ve adopted an integrated marketing approach that aims to increase consumer awareness for the Crispy & Thin through a variety of engaging content and experiences that are relevant to the interests of our target group. The key pillars of our thought process were:
- Consistency in aesthetic, messaging and post frequency
- Awareness of each social medium’s pros and cons
- Occasions and trends taken into consideration
- Content form diversity
- Influencers: utilize them, but let them loose
- User-generated content is amazing
- Balance between playfulness and sophistication
- Communication of the Oreo’s transition from milk to coffee
The #DelicateWonder is about the transformation the Crispy & Thin offers to the mundane, everyday moments of an adult’s life. Just beacuse they’re older, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a miracle. In fact, as survivors of the harsh adult reality of modern Greece, we think they have a right to it.
The main videos (for which we created early script drafts and technical specifications) showcase elegant yet authentic women in unwanted but relatable everyday scenarios. The Crispy & Thin gives them a chance to escape from reality and venture into a wonderful, fairy tale-esque place.
Apart from them, another piece of high-quality video content could be deployed on YouTube and other social media: A “delicate” cover of the wonderfilled anthem. Elegant, in Greek and by a performer our target audience loves, it would spearhead the aural identity of our campaign.
From Facebook and Instagram, to Pinterest and Spotify, we have outlined our digital content approach in the full presentation, so we’d rather not go into that right now, but I believe our ambient actions are worth mentioning. To enhance the argument that the Crispy & Thin brings a delicate wonder to the real world, we’ve decided to utilize the cityscape for a range of ambient actions that extend beyond our online content and strategy. From a mall’s panoramic elevator dramatizing the dive of a Crispy & Thin in a cup of coffee, to the tires of an urban transport bus transformed into the cookie, we want to create a sense of awe in the space our target group finds themselves during their everyday routine. In addition, we believe that very few things are as delicate and wonderfilled as art. As such, we thought it would be awesome to have the Crispy & Thin star in a shadow and lenticular art exhibiton hosted by the School of Fine Arts.
The Crispy & Thin is an adult-oriented Oreo experience perfectly suited for tasty me-moments between meals and on the go. To communicate this ideal way of consuming them, we decided to heavily push them as a cookie to accompany coffee, not milk. Through a partnership with Coffee Island, a well-known coffeehouse chain in Greece, we aim to distribute takeaway paper cups with custom prints of the Oreo logo and our campaign’s hashtag, as well as exclusive mini-packages containing Crispy & Thins to accompany beverages for free. Finally, this collaboration can extend to the Oreo and Coffee Island social media pages, where mutually beneficial cross-promotion of the Crispy & Thin could allow both brands to reach a wider audience at a low cost.
All in all, I think our team put a lot of thought in the #DelicateWonder. Υou’ll be the judge of the result, of course, so we hope you liked both this post and our presentation. I’d like to close this with a big thank you to our mentors, Betty Tsakarestou and Diana Birba, whose guidance and advice proved invaluable throught the semester, and to our colleagues for their attention and feedback.
