Brand Experience and Activation > Touchpoints & Technology

OREO MENU

VML, New York / OREO / 2024

Awards:

Bronze Cannes Lions
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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

Oreo Menu forever changed the way people experience websites and microsites by challenging the appearance of the iconic three-bar dropdown menu. By bringing to life the undeniable similarity between this menu and a stack of Oreos, we stamped the brand and product on every single website across the internet at no cost.

And by turning every menu into an offer repository, the brand ignited a conversation that reached new heights in terms of brand awareness and customer acquisition.

Please provide any cultural context that would help the Jury understand any cultural, national or regional nuances applicable to this work.

What’s a hamburger menu?

(the triple bar ≡ or trigram symbol ☰), so named by the internet for its apparent resemblance to a hamburger, is a button typically placed in a top corner of a graphical user interface (websites and/or apps). Its function is to toggle a menu or navigation bar between being collapsed behind the button or displayed on the screen. The icon which is associated with this widget, consisting of three horizontal bars, is also known as the collapsed menu icon

The icon was originally designed by Norm Cox as part of the user interface for the Xerox Star personal computer, introduced in 1981. Cox described the icon's creation, saying, "Its graphic design was meant to be very 'road sign' simple, functionally memorable, and mimic the look of the resulting displayed menu list, Cox never named it a hamburger.

But OREO came to make a claim: Cookie, Cream, Cookie, Cream, Cookie makes this menu, an OREO Menu.

Background

Despite OREO's 99% brand awareness in the U.S., OREO Cookie sales at Kroger had declined, prompting the need for a unique strategy to boost both online and in-store sales. Ecommerce was a key growth space for the brand and retailer in 2024 so we knew a digital based platform would drive the highest engagement and sales.

Central to any e-commerce strategy is digital ad spend, representing millions annually for OREO. Digital media's competitiveness needed us to bring an innovative approach to capture attention and overcome obstacles like ad blockers.

We needed to develop an out-of-the-box digital platform that complimented the brand identity of staying playful.

We realized there was already an OREO in every website and app, living rent-free, hidden in plain sight. The 3-bar drop down menu, erroneously known as a "hamburger menu"

So we set out to correct a wrong, turning every menu on the internet into OREOS.

Describe the creative idea

We made every 3-bar drop down menu an OREO Menu.

Whenever people saw it on screen, they could click or tap to expand it, and use any of the tab/category names displayed below as promo codes for OREO cookie offers at oreomenu.com

Without having to partner with any brand or affect any website backend, UX or UI, we made menu's across hundreds of millions of website and apps an OREO cookie offer repository.

From milk brands, to retailers, and even restaurants, we hacked the digital shelf, turning website hamburger menu icons into OREO Cookies.

Describe the strategy

True to our "Stay playful" platform we have set on a strategy to train consumers to constantly see OREO Cookies hiding in plain sight.

Our audience of Kroger cookie category shoppers (inclusive of OREO Cookies and our competitors) are actively engaged online and with influencers (144ix). They thrive on being part of the conversation (142ix)

In a study of more than 4 million mobile website pages, Google found that the hamburger menu button was the second most common type of menu icon, behind only the home icon. Additionally, it was discovered that, on average, website users spend about 6.44 seconds looking at the main navigation menu on a site.

We saw in the navigation icon and/or website menu what no one had yet seen; An OREO Cookie stack. It was now our mission to get people to see it too, and give OREO offers along the way.

Describe the execution

At oreomenu.com people could enter any category tab name from any website menu on the internet as promo codes for OREO Cookies, without having to do any partnership or change any backend of a single page.

With rigorous secondary research, we compiled a list of 800+ top-engaged-with category names that could be recognized.

Knowing the internet is massive and new websites are created every minute, our fail safe was having URL verification if someone entered a code that we didn’t recognize.

To launch OREO menu we went social against burgers (playfully), through social content, micro-influencers and strategic PR media placements we sparked the debate. From there, we leveraged targeted digital out of home animated media alongside offsite digital media to further our reach.

Pretty soon people starting seeing OREO Menus all across the internet.

List the results

BY MAKING PEOPLE THINK OF OREO EVERY TIME THEY SEE A 3-BAR MENU WE ARE

TURNING EVERY 3-BAR MENU INTO A STORE:

Promocodes Redeemed +1MM

in the first week.

Conversion Rate: +17%,

Double the benchmark for the cookie category.

+4% Sales Lift vs prior year

(Double the category benchmark)

In a declining cookie category

OREO share grew +7.8% vs prior year

AND TURNING EVERY WEBSITE VISIT INTO COUNTLESS MEDIA IMPRESSIONS:

There are about 1.09 billion websites and over 4.6 billion internet users globally in 2024, roughly generating 14.4 billion website visits per day. In a study of more than 4 million mobile website pages, Google found that the 3-bar menu was the most common type of navigation icon,

on average, website users spend about 6.44 seconds looking at it.

How many OREOS have you seen today?

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