Campaign
Oreo’s “Daily Twist” campaign – playing on the “twist, lick and dunk” ritual followed by many Oreo fans – offered a whimsical, humorous or eye-catching ad each day that reflected the latest happenings, pop culture news, milestones or celebrations taking place in the world. The artwork featured images of the iconic cookie and perhaps the usual Oreo sidekick – a glass of milk.
Oreo’s birthday mission was to “help everyone around the world celebrate the kid inside” and “Daily Twist” aimed to filter the world through the “playful imagination of Oreo”, Cindy Chen, director of marketing for Oreo at Kraft Foods, told Ad Age. The goal of the daily ads was “to show the world how relevant this brand is now,” Chen told the New York Times, by commenting on “real-time happenings”.
The campaign started on 25th June 2012 with a bold move – a polarising image of the cookie, stuffed with rainbow filling to celebrate Gay Pride Month. There was also a Shark Week Oreo, a Mars Rover Oreo and a tribute to panda Shin-Shin’s newborn cub – just a handful of 100 iterations that rolled out daily through to 2nd October. It then ended with a live campaign production conducted for all Times Square to see and for all the industry to see what a brand newsroom looks like.
Some might mistake “Daily Twist” as a print campaign, because at its heart are simple yet striking images. But Chen told Ad Age that it was ultimately a social and digital campaign to engage the brand’s growing fan base. There was a dedicated website – brands.nabisco.com/Oreo/dailytwist and a presence on Pinterest, Tumblr and Facebook. The chosen content was designed to spark conversation and sharing. “Consumption of media has shifted quite a bit to digital, social and mobile. To be on pace with that is really important for the brand to continue to grow; that ‘s why the Daily Twist program was born,” Chen emphasised to Ad Age.
This was a group effort from an integrated agency team consisting of DraftFCB New York, 360i, Weber Shandwick and MediaVest. DraftFCB creative director Megan Sheehan described the day-to-day work of the campaign to Ad Age. She said that although some cookie designs for “Twist” were predetermined, most of the work happened in real time. Every morning the team concentrated on “what’s trending and what’s right for Oreo”. And every day was production day, with photo shoots involving real Oreos. “We’ve shot cookies at every angle known to man – and a few new ones.” All this had to happen very quickly. As Chen told ABC News, many “Daily Twists” were turned around from concept to completion in as little as six or seven hours.