A Saturated & Cluttered Mass Market

At 99% penetration, biscuits are in the basket of every Indian.

The Indian biscuit pyramid comprises of a massive affordable segment at the bottom, dominated by legacy brand Parle-G[1]; while Britannia Good Day leads the mainstream segment in the middle[1]. Despite being a foreign entrant with just 12 years in India, Oreo has managed to become the #1 biscuit in the premium segment by penetration[1], securing it’s place at the top of the pyramid.

Our communication strategy had solely featured and focused on families with kids for 12 years. So it was no wonder that we didn’t have resonance with the grown-ups and started lagging in our penetration in households without kids. This lead us to a very simple business and brand objective, how could Oreo talk to, gain relevance and share of wallet with India’s grown-ups?

Indian society is famously conservative. Taboos still rule, and many modern topics are off-limits. This makes grown-ups increasingly self-conscious and inculcates an unhealthy fear of judgement, stifling their voice and censoring their thoughts. This crisis of self-expression became our problem worth solving.

We realised that the right voice and words could ease this crisis of self-expression

Enter #SayItWithOreo, our first-of-its-kind, real-time AI-powered platform designed for immersive self-expression. In India’s beloved wordsmith Farhan Akhtar's witty style and voice and trained by a psychologist to answer the whole spectrum of questions India might have - from asking your boss for a raise to coming out to your parents - the platform resonated deeply with the target audience. This went beyond traditional advertising, offering a safe space to overcome the fear of judgement and authentically express oneself.

Demographics:

Target Age: 15-40 years old, young enough to embrace technology and modernity and old enough to have real, grown-up emotions and problems.

Socio-economic: Primarily middle-income and above, with growing disposable income fuelling upward mobility.

Location: Urban India, where exposure to modern trends exists alongside strong community ties which get strained due to the influx of modernity

Psychographics:

The Complicated Indian Grown-up - Grounded in traditional belief systems and family rituals, yet embracing modern and progressive trends. Fluent in technology and use it to overcome barriers often (Calm, Bumble). Hesitant to express themselves freely due to fear of judgement, especially in social situations.

This helped us identify a clear need shared by this entire audience – a crisis of self-expression caused by an unhealthy and deep-seated fear of judgement from the still-very-conservative society of India. Bringing us to our insight: The right words and a neutral voice can unlock self-expression.

#SayItWithOreo's success was about a strategic and integrated creative and media implementation that resonated with the target audience.

Creatively, we leveraged Farhan Akhtar's culturally relevant voice alongside his humour and wit and combined it with leading Indian psychologists' knowledge to create this real-time, first-of-its-kind platform.

We made Oreos the gateway to #SayItWithOreo Platform, ensuring seemless product integration.

From a tech perspective, we used ResembleAI to clone Farhan's voice. Partnering with Google, we identified the most asked questions. We got psychologists to train ChatGPT’s language processing model to generate answers for these questions. We brought in Web purify to filter out any negative messages and ensure playfulness. Finally, we created targeted ad responses, ensuring everyone regardless of age or background felt seen and understood.

Media-wise, we focused on social-media platforms AND WhatsApp to enter everyday conversations hyper-locally. Contextual integrations with influencers and social personalities further strengthened our outreach.

Oreo gained relevance and penetration with India’s grown-ups:

Our main target audience, households-without-kids, grew by 46%[1] vs last year’s activated period. This was >3x[1] more than the category growth in the same period.

Overall brand penetration grew 50%[1], surpassing competition by >4x[1].

We Boosted Penetration in Households-without-Kids!

With 1.6 million[3] unique questions asked and answered, we understood unspoken needs

Questions ranged from “how to ask your parents for permission for a sleepover” to “how can I come out to my parents”.

We became ubiquitous. Our audience use the platform for difficult and mundane conversations.

We became as relevant to grown-ups as kids!

Our brand funnel reached its highest peak ever.

Top-of-Mind awareness jumped 33%[2] after the campaign vs a mere 13%[2] by largest mainstream competitor - Britannia Good Day.

Strengthened the brand funnel!

The campaign achieved over 2 billion[3] impressions

And reached over 180[3] million Indians.

Made media work harder!