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From turntable boxes to 'Game of Thrones'-themed cookies: How Oreo stays relevant despite changing consumer preferences

By Tanya Dua
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Oreo's partnership with Google's Android YouTube/Google
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SAN DIEGO — Despite rapidly changing consumer preferences, Oreo has stayed relevant by tapping into innovation, culture, and playfulness, its senior director Justin Parnell said at the Association of National Advertisers' Brand Masters Conference on Wednesday.

"It's about elevating Oreo from being a cookie that you play with to being a brand that you engage with," said Parnell. "[A brand] that's interesting and playful, in and of itself."

Oreo has a brand purpose, and tries to live it every step of the way

Oreo has always associated itself with playfuness. Its latest global ad campaign was "Stay Playful," and one of the spots features musician Wiz Khalifa and his 5-year-old son, Sebastian, and shows how everyday life gets in the way of having fun, underscoring the importance of taking time to be playful with one another. The ad is set to a song that Khalifa especially composed for it. 

The spot was well-received, Parnell said. He didn't share specifics, but pointed to a tweet by musician P. Diddy praising the ad.

Oreo also doesn't shy away from addressing cultural touchpoints, said Parnell, citing its campaigns supporting gay pride and the LGBTQ community starting back in 2012.

It also tries to push the envelope with fun experiments and partnerships 

Oreo's "dunk in the dark" tweet in 2013 was one of the best-known Super Bowl social media stunts, and it continues to do playful and quirky campaigns.

For the Wiz Khalifa campaign above, for instance, Oreo created the "Oreo Music Box," a mini turntable designed to only read Oreo cookies, playing the song Khalifa composed for the spot. And on "National Left Handers' Day" last year, Oreo created special left-handed boxes.

Oreo collaborates with other brands on special edition packages, too, such as Disney for Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday celebrations, Google for Android Oreo or HBO for highly anticipated final season "Game Of Thrones." 

And it continues to innovate 

Lastly, Oreo keeps innovating with a steady stream of new flavors and variations, from Swedish Fish and root beer float flavors to Oreo Thins and The Most Stuf Oreos.

Such variations capture the imaginations of consumers and surprise them, helping boost the brand, said Parnell.

"Flavors have been one of the biggest brand-builders for us over the last five years," he said.

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Tanya Dua
Tanya Dua
Tanya was a senior reporter at Business Insider, covering all things advertising, media and marketing.  She specifically focused on brands (both big brands and DTC upstarts) and ad agencies, and how their businesses are being shaped by technology and culture, as the analog world reckons with digital. She also wrote about Amazon, Facebook, Google, and other tech companies' impact on the ad industry as well as the blurring lines between retail and advertising. Here's a small sample of some of her work: Gap's earnings are skyrocketing. Here's how the retailer brought itself back from the brink by revamping its marketing and products. Snap is on a growth tear. We talked to 22 insiders about how the once-flailing company got advertisers to fall in love with it and reversed its sales slump. Inside Barbie's comeback: How Mattel repositioned the 60-year-old doll as a woke role model and reversed its sales slump The rise and fall of Crispin Porter Bogusky: How the hottest ad agency lost its mojo Inside the biggest independent ad agency, The Richards Group, where some say an old-school culture that included all-male retreats fueled racism and sexism Inside the rise of Netflix's new 'badass' CMO, who rubs elbows with Anna Wintour and the Obamas and handled crises at Uber and Papa John's 15 Quibi insiders detail Jeffrey Katzenberg's tight control of the startup's content and intense leadership as he tries to avoid disaster after raising $1.8 billion Glossier employees just sent an open letter alleging mistreatment and discrimination at the company — but staffers have long complained of issues of mistreatment and discrimination at the trendy beauty brand's stores $1 billion startup Rent the Runway has furloughed 35% of its employees. Its future is now in question as coronavirus ravages retail. Juul just laid off 650 workers after federal investigations rocked the company. Workers who were affected describe how it was handled and what they saw leading up to it. How a high-flying media executive with a $1 million annual paycheck and big plans to revamp the LA Times found himself out of a job after 5 months At Vice Media's once high-flying ad agency Carrot, a founder is out and insiders describe a hostile culture toward women Before joining BI, Tanya was a reporter at Digiday. She holds a Master of Science in Journalism from Columbia University. 
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