Oreo Team Crafts Last Daily Twist in Heart of Times Square
Since noon yesterday, the team of around 15 people has monitored a flood of concepts from Facebook and Twitter users who submitted ideas for a new take on the beloved cream-filled cookie.
Since noon yesterday, the team of around 15 people has monitored a flood of concepts from Facebook and Twitter users who submitted ideas for a new take on the beloved cream-filled cookie.
It was about an hour before they would announce the winning idea marking the culmination of an iconic 100-day social media campaign celebrating 100 years of an iconic cookie treat. The Oreo marketing team, along with execs from supporting agencies Draft FCB, 360i, and Weber Shandwick were clustered in close quarters in the heart of rainy Times Square, New York, sandwiched between Broadway and 7th Avenue. Onlookers hovered under umbrellas wondering what the sign that proclaimed “Advertising Campaign in Progress” meant exactly.
It meant just that. Since noon yesterday, the team of around 15 people has monitored a flood of concepts from Facebook and Twitter users who submitted ideas for a new take on the beloved cream-filled cookie.
“It’s the last day of Daily Twist and we’re putting the call out to all our fans! Click here – http://oreo.ly/TwistIdea – to private message us your topic for the last Twist. It could be featured on a billboard in Times Square!” noted the brand this morning on the Oreo Facebook page.
By 9 a.m. this morning, creatives began sketching out what the semi-final concepts might look like in real life. They worked amid reminders of the campaign’s previous successes. In the corner were the actual versions of earlier Oreo iterations, encased in plexiglass. A vanilla Oreo became a burger-like treat, filled with beef brown, lettuce green, and tomato red layers of icing; the cookie had commemorated Labor Day. Alongside, a fin-shaped Oreo was perched in a glass full of faux-milk.
The campaign even inspired some people to show their appreciation for the brand in-person. Before the rain came two women stopped by Daily Twist HQ dressed in Oreo Hats, with Oreos glued to their outfits, said Danielle Brown, Oreo’s senior associate brand manager, who spoke with ClickZ from the temporary Oreo Daily Twist office in Times Square.
“It’s pretty pheonmenal to see the brand-love in person,” she said.
The finalists for voting today: “Anniversary of First High Five,” “The Twilight Zone Premiered,” and “Warp Drive Deemed Feasible.” In keeping with previous daily versions, the goal for Oreo is to create something that reflects what is trending that day, according to Brown. The splashy Daily Twist culmination is “a really good punctuation for the campaign,” she said.
Some fans showed their love on Twitter, posting their votes using hashtags #DailyTwist1, #DailyTwist2, and #DailyTwist3.
@oreo : #dailytwist1 First High Five! Wish I was in New York to see the final reveal but good luck!
— Kristin Martino (@kristinomartino) October 2, 2012
Around 2:45 p.m., the high-five Oreo concept was the clear leader with 137 votes on Facebook. According to Brown (team photo, center), the first Daily Twist on June 25 – a multi-layered Oreo, each layer a color of the rainbow – is to this day the most-shared. The Gay Pride Oreo was presented the day after San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade in June. Brown said it wasn’t preconceived, noting “We were reacting to what was going on” in social media.
Though the Daily Twist ends today, said Brown, “We’re thinking about what’s the next generation of a real-time campaign.”