Born in 1912, OREO was about to turn 100. And, when you’re that old, you might be loved and revered, but you can also be seen as old-fashioned.

Indeed, having spent the past century communicating mostly through TV ads that played to classic, intimate family moments, the brand had developed quite a traditional image.

Our challenge: how to solve the paradox of using a centennial anniversary to actually rejuvenate OREO.

Given a limited budget and our desire to communicate through contemporary media in a contemporary way, we focused our effort on OREO’s social media networks, a place where the brand had many fans (as you would expect from such a well-known brand) but also a pretty low level of engagement (as you could expect with a brand perceived as being quite old).

And instead of focusing on the past, we decided to focus on the present.

“Daily Twist” was born: 100 ads developed over 100 days in real time, spread through the brand’s social networks, showing the trending news of the day through the playful and innocent eyes of an OREO cookie.

The campaign didn’t reflect the news – it became the news.

The Daily Twists were seen 434 million times around the world on Facebook (the “Pride” post alone reached a total of 4,388,864 individuals).

We doubled our Facebook engagement rate, with over 1.3 million interactions (195% average increase) attracting 1,055,601 new fans to the OREO page.

These conversations generated more than 2,800 media stories and 270 million media impressions in just 100 days.

From major broadcasting news to late-night shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report to economic institutions like Forbes and the Harvard Business Review, everyone celebrated the effort.

In Q3, by the end of “Daily Twist,” OREO base growth was at +2% – a remarkable result, considering the size of the brand and a 28% drop in media spending compared to the first quarter of the same year.

According to NBC’s Brand Power Index, “Daily Twist” made OREO the brand with the highest increase in buzz in 2012 (+49% vs, 2011).

“Daily Twist” went beyond engaging consumers and — by introducing the concept and practice of real-time marketing — inspired creative executions and other big brands’ marketing activity for the days to come. Quite an achievement and a pioneering result, for being just a simple cookie and a 100-year-old brand.