Marketing Oreo: Beyond Vanilla Media
Social media marketing has become a new avenue for companies to advertise their brand and market more effectively. One such brand that I believe has effectively utilized social media is Oreo. Oreo uses various social media platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, to market their brand and reach out to their customers. On Twitter, you don’t even have to be a follower of Oreo to see their Tweets. Just the other day I was scrolling down my Twitter Feed and saw a Tweet from the official, verified Oreo Twitter page, and I don’t even follow them on Twitter.
In terms of their following, Oreo has over 32 million followers on Facebook, over 82 thousand followers on Twitter, over 87 thousand followers on Instagram, and over 14 million followers on YouTube. Oreo has been successful in creating viral content that has been widely recognized throughout all of their social media platforms. For example, during the Superbowl in New Orleans in 2013, when the power went out, Oreo decided to use social media to make a statement. They Tweeted a photo of an oreo with the text “You can still dunk in the dark”, and the caption stating “Power out? No problem.” This tweet was created and sent out within five minutes of the power outage and received more than 16,000 retweets (Hayes). The expediency to which Oreo was able to respond to an event is key in their successful social media marketing.
(Photo source: Hayes)
Another social media platform Oreo utilizes in a clever and engaging way is Facebook. On Oreo’s 100th birthday, the company decided to start a campaign called the “Daily Twist,” in which for the next 100 days Oreo would post a photo of an oreo depicting some historical milestone that happened on that day. For instance, on August 5, 2012, Oreo posted a photo of half an oreo with red cream, with tire marks on it, to commemorate when the Mars Rover landing on the moon. The “Daily Twist” lasted from June to October 2012 and apparently “increased customer engagement 110%” (Hayes). This campaign also “won Oreo two Cyber Grand Prix awards at 2013’s Cannes International Festival of Creativity and led to 433m Facebook views, a 280% increase in shares and created 231m media impressions overall” (Ratcliff).
(Photo source: Hayes)
In addition to Facebook and Twitter, Oreo utilizes Instagram to successfully market their brand. They created a hashtag, #PlayWithOreo on Instagram which encouraged their followers to post cute and clever photos of their oreos, as seen in the photo below (O’flynn).
(Photosource: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/playwithoreo/)
Oreo is successful in utilizing social media for a few key reasons. Oreo engages in conversations on social media not only with other brands but also with customers. They have engaged in conversations on Twitter with brands such as Xbox and Taco Bell (Ratcliff). They also will respond to individual Tweets from everyday people. Oreo is also so successful because they are carefree and always maintain a sense of humor. Lastly, they are so successful because they are able to utilize their own product, in many inventive and creative ways, to reach out to the public and catch our interest. Ratcliff states “The little cookie may have looked the same for 100 years, but the secret to Oreo’s marketing success is using the cookie itself as a blank canvas” (Ratcliff).
Hayes lists 4 social media strategies that contribute to Oreo’s success that other companies can also follow. This list included: “Be timely and Topical,” “Promote Consistently and Frequently,” “Use Graphics, Simple Concepts,” and “Have fun” (Hayes). This list is similar to the one found in Kaplan and Haenlein’s essay. The key tips that Oreo utilizes from Kaplan and Haenlein in terms of being social are being active and being interesting. Oreo is active in that they are constantly up-to-date and even have real-time reactions to life events through the use of Twitter. Oreo exemplifies perfectly that the key to utilizing social media marketing is sharing and interaction (Kaplan and Haenlein). Oreo is also successful by Kaplan and Haenlein’s standards in that they are interesting, they listen to their customers and provide them with content that they might find interesting or valuable (Kaplan and Haenlein). Oreo is successful for the reasons listed above but also because they are able to “humanize their brand” (O’flynn). They make their brand seem very personal and through their posts on social media you feel as if you are interacting with an actual person, rather than a computer-generated response.
Sources:
Hayes, Mark. “The Secret Behind Oreo’s Social Media Marketing.” Shopify’s Ecommerce
Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2017.
Kaplan, Andreas M., and Michael Haenlein. “Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and
Opportunities of Social Media.” Business Horizons 53.1 (2010): 59-68. Web.
O’flynn, Richard. “The Way The Social Cookie Crumbles: The Genius of Oreo’s Social Media
Marketing.” Digital Internet Marketing. N.p., 23 Apr. 2015. Web. 06 Mar. 2017.
Ratcliff, Christopher. “How Oreo Owns Social Media through Twitter, Instagram, Vine and
Pinterest.” Econsultancy. N.p., 02 Dec. 2013. Web. 06 Mar. 2017.
Kaplan, Andreas M., and Michael Haenlein. “Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and
Opportunities of Social Media.” Business Horizons 53.1 (2010): 59-68. Web.
Nice blog. Thanks for sharing.
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