Oreo Thins: The Bakers’ way
When we were first presented with the idea of creating a marketing and activation plan for the “Oreo Thin & Crispy” cookies at the Ad&PR Lab, our mind gears immediately started running at top speed. Flooding with excitement, we got to work right away.
Our main objective was to create a marketing plan which apart from creative ideas and activation strategies, would implement everything we had learned throughout the semster, under the careful guidance of Betty Tsakarestou and Diana Birba.
The Plan in short
The main angle in our marketing plan was that Oreo Thins are the evolution of the classic Oreos : the iconic cookie, minus the guilt. Following the company’s line of creating a more sophisticated and “grown-up” snack, we aimed towards a campaign that would present the product as light, grab and go alternative.
We carefully planned several activation campaigns for spring 2017, budgeting and analyzing each an every one of them. The activations included social media campaigns with custom hashtags (#ThinnerThanOreoThin) and collaborations with companies like Uber and Pockee.
The goal was to create strategies and content that would acquaint the product with our specific target group, while being up to date with current trends and cost efficient.
The experience
Creating and ad campaign for a brand as massive as Oreo, was one of the most rewarding experiences for each and every one of us. We got a chance to work on a real project, with a real company and high expectations. Even the tight time frame we had to work in, actually helped us develop our crisis management skills and learn how to work more efficiently.
Through this experience, we put to work every skill we aqcuired throughout the semester, utilising every tip our mentors (Diana Birba, Betty Tsakarestou, Markos Aris, Kostantinos Vareloglou and many more) taught us in the past six months. We also learned how to work as team, bonding and sharing ideas with one another, distributing responsibilities and work equally and according to everyone’s special skills.
The presentation…
We opted for aminimal, to-the-point presentation describing our plan, ideas and implementation periods/techniques thoroughly, but without being too dense in content.
We also created a lot of original content which we added to the presentation, including videos and graphics we could use as points of reference. We took care to make our presentation short enough to not exceed the time limit given to us, rehearsing multiple times prior to the actual presentation and timing it very carefully. We were very excited to share our work with both our professors and our classmates.
…and the mishaps
However, things don’t always according to plan. Despite all of our careful planning and preparation, we faced some major technical difficulties that hindered performance.
Technology failed us -meaning the projector device crashed- and we had to power through the presentation with a laptop in our hands. In spite of all the anxiety that crept over us though, we managed to make things work and learned a valuable lesson: crisis management is an invaluable skill. When faced with difficulties, you can’t sit and ponder what went wrong, you have to take action and work with what you have.
After all, life is what happens when people make plans.
The Bakers: Frossini Drakouli, Jason Verbis, Asimina Christodoulatou, Chris Zarbalas, Panayotis Reppas, Martha Davari
