How did the brand Oreo manage to become one of the leaders of the cookies market?
Born in 1912 in New York, 500 billion of the famous Oreo cookies have been sold around the planet. A true “globalized” biscuit, this product is present in more than 100 countries and brings in more than a billion and a half dollars each year to the American giant Mondelez. The “Twist, Lick, Dunk” of this iconic biscuit has become a ritual in many cultures around the world.
But how did the brand Oreo manage to reach the top, and became the leader of the cookie market?
Before we start, let’s set up a little historical background. The Oreo biscuits were born thanks to the American brand Nabisco in the district of Chelsea, New York. The goal, at that time, was to compete with the British cookies, considered too ordinary. The cookies were then sold in a grocery store in Hoboken, New Jersey, on the other side of the Hudson River. Soon, these biscuits gained success and became “America’s favorite cookie”. The Oreo biscuits originally existed in two different flavors: with lemon meringue and cream. In 1916, a new design appeared, indeed the cream cookie was widely preferred by consumers which is still the case today. And so, since its creation, Oreo is the “best-selling biscuit” of the 21st century.
To succeed in becoming one of the most famous biscuits in the world, the Oreo brand had to make a strong communication strategy.
First of all, the digital strategy: Oreo has managed to make their mark on the web culture by proposing communication strategies and operations that make people talk or/and make the buzz !
All this comes from a digital strategy based on a simple statement for the brand: Oreo fans are divided into two distinct groups: those who love the “cookie part” and those who love the “cream part”. It’s by keeping this thread in mind that Oreo is so good at making people talk about this brand. The notoriety of Oreo is due to the creativity that the brand is bringing. Their communication strategy is based on three words: originality, creativity and reactivity. Every idea has to be innovative, and Oreo has understood it and knows how to use it via social media.
For example, in 2013 during the Super Bowl final the brand took advantage of a power outage to immediately launch a viral advertisement on its Twitter account. The reactivity of the agency and the brand has been rewarded, this tweet has been retweeted over 15,000 times. A great performance for Oreo, who took advantage of this break to create a marketing buzz.
Also, on Saturday June 25, 2012, the global LGBT community celebrated Gay Pride: The Gay Pride Day. An image posted on the official page of the brand did not remained unnoticed: A cookie under the colors of the homosexual flag.
If the brand Oreo succeeded in seducing the rest of the world it is also because of its ability to adapt their product to their target. Indeed, in 1998 a kosher Oreo without added pork fat was released in the United States. Strawberry and blueberry Oreo are sold in Indonesia and Malaysia, Oreo with green tea and lemon in China and Japan, while “Dulce de leche chocolate” Oreo is only marketed in Chile and Argentina.
To settle in India for instance, the brand Oreo had to adapt their commercial to the local culture. For their ad Oreo appeals to the emotional to impose its product as a link in family relationships: siblings, parents and children are linked by a complicity found around the biscuit and the famous ritual “Twist, Lick and Dunk”. There are commercials with a father and his son gathered around the biscuit… Or with the famous Indian actor Ranbir Kapoor whom again, practice the famous “ritual”: a young ambassador to touch young adults who are also a prime target of the cookie.
To put an end to this article here is a video of the most crazy ads released by the brand.
