Oreo to Fans: Cookie or Creme?

It’s been a big week for Oreo. Not only did an on-the-fly power outage tweet help the brand gain nearly 8,000 Twitter followers, its first Super Bowl spot marked the launch of its Cookie vs. Creme campaign that has so far propelled it to more than 50,000 followers on Instagram.

Oreo’s Cookie vs. Creme campaign is a two-month program focused on what it says is a longstanding disagreement among fans — which part of an Oreo is best?

The campaign launched by asking fans to submit a photo they love with the hashtag #cookiethis or #cremethis on Instagram. Over the course of a three-day period, Oreo selected a number of submissions and worked with a team of artists in Portland, Oregon to create sculptures based on the images using either cookie or creme. The sculpture creations are then photographed and uploaded to Instagram.

As of Tuesday, nearly 32,000 fan submissions had resulted in 122 sculptures.

Oreo says the team makes its selections based on “originality, creativity, and images that could be fun, beautiful and interesting to sculpt.”

According to Susan Burris, senior associate brand manager at Oreo parent Mondelez International, Oreo has gained “basically all” of its Instagram followers as a result of the campaign. After “seeding it” on Facebook, Oreo had about 2,200 Instagram followers prior to the game. Fifteen seconds after the Super Bowl ad aired, Burris says Oreo had 22,000 followers. As of Tuesday, that figure was up to about 53,000 followers.

“We’re hoping to facilitate the conversation — which part of the Oreo do they prefer, which side do they prefer,” Burris says.

Throughout the campaign, Oreo will continue to engage consumers through a number of additional activations. However, Burris says she can’t talk about the “fun surprises” coming up after the sculpting component ends.

“It’s very visual, it’s something that’s unique and it’s something Oreo hasn’t done before,” Burris says of Instagram. “We’re not just launching an Instagram page, we’re launching an engagement experience, saying, ‘Hey — we have this page. This is something we’re engaging on and we have pictures posted now — we have things we have cookied or cremed.'”

While Milk’s Favorite Cookie may have a broad appeal, Oreo is looking to increase conversations with Millennials in this campaign, she adds.

In order to promote the campaign, Oreo has reskinned Oreo.com, launched a mobile site and on-package messaging and made digital media buys.

The 30-second TV spot that launched during the Super Bowl depicts the Cookie vs. Creme argument with two men in a library. In addition to “Whisper Fight,” a second spot is slated to air starting March 11 on major U.S. cable networks. Both spots were created by Portland-based ad agency Wieden + Kennedy.

Oreo has 31.5 million likes on Facebook and 73,000 followers on Twitter.