Gaming is now the largest sector in the entertainment business, with a worth of $176bn in 2021 – making this industry bigger than Hollywood. A recent report, published by DFC Intelligence, has revealed that nearly 3.1 billion people worldwide play video games, which is about 40% of the world’s population. Gaming as a hobby and interest has never been more popular and in OREO’s race to be the treat of choice among European millennials, showing up for this passion point is a fast way to drive trial and accelerate growth potential among our target. To bring more playfulness into the world and make gaming more fun for everyone, the world’s number one cookie, OREO, and international gaming giant, Xbox, partnered to create an unmissable activation and unlock playfulness in real life.

Everyone loves to unlock hidden features, whether in games or even in real life. And the easiest way to do it is by using Cheat Codes. A sequence of combinations that allow players to unlock special items in the game that are not available through standard play. Cheat codes have become common in everyday life. In 2023, OREO and Xbox brought the hype and nostalgia around cheat codes back, inviting consumers to create combinations with cookies. For the first time in Europe, OREO launched 6 different embossments, inspired by the Xbox controller buttons, giving the cookies an innovative role and creating a gaming experience. From the iconic Xbox logo to the signature A, B, X, Y and arrow buttons, consumers could create combinations with the OREO Xbox Special Edition and unlock prizes on our website.

OREO and Xbox decided to come up with OREO-themed exclusive in-game content for three of the Xbox’s top-played games: Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite and Sea of Thieves. Each of these great games has a dedicated community of gamers with new players joining all the time. By launching 6 new designs and giving the cookies an innovative role, OREO and Xbox were able to draw the attention of all ages/backgrounds and various types of media, influencers, the gaming community, and society. The campaign’s success was based on both the creativity of its idea and the meticulous execution down to a micro-level: mass media communication and gaming communication were treated with equal importance in the tailor-made target group approach. To achieve true impact, each Business Unit carefully chose its own activations in line with the local market and preferences.

If OREO is well-known for its playfulness in the US, the brand and its positioning are relatively new for European consumers. We needed a strong activation to cut through the clutter of local, very traditional, brands that dominate the biscuit category, and to boost sales and retailer engagement in a period usually flat.

Instead of borrowing fame and playfulness from our partner, Xbox, we reinforced mutually the two brands through the creative idea and its execution.

The two brands partnered because of shared values, but also because of the synergy between their audiences: the average age of video game player in Europe is 31.3 years old and 60% of the 25-34 play games (ISFE EU Video Game data – 2021).

The challenge was twofold: find an insight relevant for gamers (brought by Xbox) yet able to trigger playfulness and interest within the broader Millennials population (our core audience), and then, translate it into the right contest mechanic, which poses other technical challenges.

For the first time in the brand history, we were able to emboss cookies with 6 different designs and dispatch them in every European pack. OREOs were then used as buttons on the Xbox joypad which combined and scanned with your phone would unlock in-game content and prizes. Gamers are very familiar with cheat codes that give access to bonus features (skins, weapons, lives…).

Some may call it cheating, while others will say it is a clever way to increase the play value of any game. Offering cheat codes to use immediately in the famous Forza or Halo in the form of delicious cookies was then obviously tempting to gamers, but it was very attractive to broader population too who is looking for hacks in real life. The gaming vernacular resonates with everyone. Innovative yet simple, scanning the cookies engaged all types of consumers.

Unlocking playfulness thanks to our cookies has been immediately adopted by 34 markets in Europe (out of 49), but also by retailers: the limited edition was sold in 35000 stores. Markets with biscuit culture as different as France, UK, or the Netherlands equally related to the idea. The stock of product - 53 million of packs - has been sold out in less than 3 months. OREO grew by +8.4% within the total biscuit category (Nielsen, value change YA, YTD H1.23, Europe). With 6.7 billion impressions and 5.8 average engagement rate (Synthesio 2/01-17/04/23), OREO Cheat Cookies took consumers and the gaming community by storm beyond European borders: it became a trending topic on Reddit and X, traffic on the website hosting the program (1.6M unique visitors) even counted people from the US and LATAM, social media were filled with frustrated non-European gamers who couldn’t buy the OREOs. More than 827419 items have been unlocked. But the ultimate proof of success of the campaign might be the repeated attempts of pirates to crack the redeem serial numbers forcing us to change codes every 20 minutes. But who are we to blame the cheaters?

The campaign was launched in January 2023 and distributed locally and globally through YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, OOH, influencers, newsletters, points of sales, and local activations, highlighting cheat cookies everywhere. For a chance to win prizes, fans were invited to visit the campaign website www.oreo.eu and scan the real cookies in order to find the right cheat codes and unlock the prizes. By using machine learning for analyzing the cookies and a native web platform, we could achieve an average of 90% accuracy in detecting different cookie embossments, making the user experience flow super friendly and even easier for everyone to participate. To avoid any type of cheating against our platform, we changed the codes every 20 minutes.

The cheat cookies took the gaming community by storm with more than 28.6k mentions and 6,7 potential billion impressions in 3,5 months (2nd Jan. – 17th April). The campaign had a very high engagement rate reaching 5.8%. From trying to cheat by using images of the cookies from the internet to selling the skins on eBay, fans from all over the world did everything to get our limited in-game content even in countries where the campaign wasn’t live. 827.419 items were unlocked. Our dedicated website welcomed 1.6M unique visitors who spent 4 minutes on average cracking codes. More than 470.000 new consumers subscribed to the OREO newsletter during the activation only. The limited-edition packs were sold out before the end of the period which represents 53 million of packs.

OREO Xbox Cheat Cookies. Making cookies part of pop culture – with a little cheating.