Creative Effectiveness > Creative Effectiveness: Sectors
OREO CHEAT COOKIES
SAATCHI & SAATCHI, Dusseldorf / MONDELEZ INTERNATIONAL / 2024
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Overview
Summary of the work
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?
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