How VML Keeps Finding OREOs Hidden in Plain Sight

As part of OREO’s ‘Stay Playful’ platform, created in partnership with VML, the beloved cookie brand has recently been unveiling all the locations in our daily lives where OREOs hide in plain sight. Be it barcodes on cartons of milk, or the popular ‘OREO’ black and white colourways for sneakers, the cookies - and their recognisable shape and aesthetic - are everywhere, if you know where to look.

The latest instalment draws yet another comparison from pop culture - this time, it’s the ‘hamburger menus’ you can find on most websites. Even if you didn’t know they had a name, you’ve surely seen the icon with three horizontal lines at the edge of your screen many times. They usually open a drop-down menu of navigational links to different pages? Got it? Yeah… you know the ones. Well, while they do look like the layers of a burger, they also bear a distinct resemblance to your favourite triple-layered OREO cookies - and from this insight, the ‘OREO Menu’ campaign was born.

By expanding the ‘OREO Menu’ on any site, cookie fans across the US could take the category names from the drop-down options and use them as promo codes at oreomenu.com - earning them discounts exclusively at Kroger stores. 

To discuss how the project came to be, and how VML is evolving the platform, LBB’s Ben Conway spoke with Manuel Bordé, global chief creative officer of commerce at VML.

LBB> Where did the insight for this campaign come from? Who noticed the hamburger menu - OREO resemblance?

Manuel> We have been on a multi-year effort to get shoppers to see OREOs hidden in plain sight, building upon the brand’s ‘Stay Playful’ platform. For OREO Menu, our audience spends so much time in the digital space we wanted to turn OREO equity hidden across the web into a commerce opportunity. Our internal creative team was the first to spot the resemblance within the menu icon’s design.

LBB> Beyond the resemblance, what were the initial creative discussions like about making the ‘OREO Menu’ a thing? 

Manuel> Most of the ideation was around how we can hijack these ‘hamburger’ menus and get people to debate the merits of the name. So, we landed on a social commerce approach and seeded the conversation through social media to get people talking and converting the ‘menus’ into OREO offers.

LBB> How does this campaign build on the OREO Codes Milk campaign? What were some learnings from that project that informed how you developed this one?

Manuel> Our strategy with Mondelez is to continue getting our shopper to see OREOs hidden in plain sight. We learned a lot from last year’s award-winning ‘OREO Codes’ activation, from how our audience engages with the tech to what tools within our partners’ retail ecosystems are best at driving traffic and conversion for these creative commerce engagements. 

‘OREO Codes’ was a scanning technology that we built with a microsite. For ‘OREO Menu’ we altered that tech to allow shoppers to input any menu copy, versus having to scan. That functionality was better suited for this idea and complemented the narrative we sparked across social media.

The microsite tech was built internally at VML. It featured a database of all common copy found within the UX from top sites. From milk to retailers, social media and search engines, ‘OREO Menu’ allowed all these words to trigger a successful offer. If the shopper entered a word not in our database, they had to supply the URL to help validate it before getting the offer.

Above: Manuel Bordé

LBB> OREO is a long-time partner with VML - how collaborative were they on this project, and with the creative team more generally?

Manuel> Our partnerships with the OREO brand and shopper teams at Mondelez have been the key to the success of all our programmes. The willingness to support and learn from these ideas and help get them live into the market has been incredible. They supported the idea from the initial meeting all the way through the sell-in phase and pushing it live through our retail partner, Kroger’s ecosystem.

LBB> What was the hardest challenge you faced on this campaign, and how did you overcome it?

Manuel> Our biggest challenge was timing, seeing we had a small window to execute this due to the brand's busy programme calendar. We overcame this through our partnership with the OREO clients and our ability to swarm this project with the correct support both internally and externally to stay on track.

LBB> Do you have any data/findings from this campaign that you can share with us?

Manuel> Not only did we recapture lost OREO buyers and reverse the -13% decline in buyers going into this initiative, but the +8% growth in buyers OREO achieved outpaced category buyer growth by over five times! OREO also lifted total category dollar sales at the retailer by almost 3%.

LBB> What was the most fulfilling part of the project for you? What do you look forward to developing or continuing with the brand going forward?

Manuel> The most fulfilling part is our partnership with the brand and the collective effort to innovate and push creativity within the commerce space. The success of these programs has unlocked a ton of opportunities for the brand and our team. We are looking forward to building on these efforts and continuing to find OREOs hidden in plain sight.