BlackPink In Your Area Oreo!

Multimarket campaign in SE Asia (Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore)

Executive Summary

Our Challenge: To drive 10%+ sales uplift, overcoming the perception that Oreo is a ‘kid’s only cookie’, and winning over GenZ, the most significant growth audience for Oreo, where we were losing appeal.

Insight: To foster a deeper connection with GenZ, we need to be culture first – be part of what they careabout - building an authentic connection and an iconic experience that they can own and share.

Idea: We tapped into K-pop, the most popular cultural phenomena among GenZ, through an iconic Oreo limited-edition campaign, powering an intimate connection with Genz: ‘BlackPink in Your Oreo’

Execution of the idea: Owning the youth corridor of connection and shareability across six markets in SE Asia, we built a 360-degree campaign fueled by AI-powered personalized messages from BlackPink members, Virtual experience of a concert, Activation of the Blink fandom, and transferred the iconic power of BlackPink in the hands of the Genz community, with their favorite Oreo Cookie.

Results (SEA): they were astounding.

-        Business: 28% uplift in sale across SEA

-        Brand: 5% uplift in brand recall and purchase intent.

-        Buzz: 250mn Reach, 4bn video views, 2.9mn UGC videos, 241mn engagements.

Why this case should win

How often have you heard of a cookie connecting with culture to entice consumers and generate 28% sales uplift in a single campaign? Or, how often have you heard of a cookie being ordered in the Americas, from SE Asia, for 10X the price of cargo, over the Cookie? Or, when a cookie ran out of stock in stores and customers queuing up to pay 100 times more in black market?

Changing perception is challenging. Traditionally looked upon as a kids brand, Oreo completely revamped its positioning by becoming part of the GenZ’s culture leveraging the phenomenon called BlackPink in Your Oreo. We forged an unthinkable partnership with SEA’s most popular K-pop band BlackPink to create meaningful social experiences that completely transformed Oreo’s growth trajectory. The campaign generated 28% sales lift, 5% uplift brand metrics, 1.01Mn FPD, IDR2.3Bn worth of earned media and more importantly resonated with 80mn people emotionally.

This is the astounding story of how a cookie brought together culture and consumer through meaningful connections to deliver THREE months sales target in just ONE month.

This is how we BLINK’d OREO! BlackPink in Your Oreo!

Strategy

(Challenge):

Biscuit category is highly penetrated at 96% and is also highly fragmented, more so within the larger snacking category. However, our penetration remained low at an avg.40% and was dropping. we were losing to both legacy giants (like Mayora, Garuda, and Nabati) in Indonesia, Malaysia, and other preferred formats (like pies and cakes) in Vietnam, Philippines. To drive growth, we had to get more people to buy Oreo and many more times.  

Consumer analysis showed that Oreo was perceived as a cookie just for kids. 81% of sales came through moms with kids. Consumption amongst young adults remained highly under indexed. Market potential data showed that Young Adults 18-25yrs (GenZ) formed a huge segment of 100 mn+ in SE Asia with the most prominent number of snacking occasions in a week. Therefore, for Oreo to grow it was imperative to tap into GenZ demand space. Oreo had to break free from the confines of being seen as a ‘kid’s sweet cookie’ and be a favorite snack across generations, rooted in its purpose to foster ‘Playful Connections’.

(Audience Insight):

Oreo is every kid’s favourite cookie but loses attachment among the GenZ.  GenZ involve in the greatest number of snacking occasions and spend the most time online. It is near impossible to demand attention from GenZ. To win them, we had to be part of what they care about and earn their attention. With kids we were ritualistic, and it worked – but, to appeal to the youth we had to be part of what they love, own and share. By being - CULTURE FIRST.

The most significant shared culture across SE Asia countries for GenZ has been the Hallyu, or the Korean Wave. It doesn’t just shape their music or fashion choices but fuels their entire lifestyle. And k-Pop stars are demigods who help them get closer to their aspirations. This led us to the consumer truth, that to connect with Genz, we needed to build an authentic cultural connection between the icons they love (fandom) and the brands they love, to emotionally connect with Oreo, as the sought-after snack, like they emotionally connect with their icons.

Our analysis showed that while there are lot of popular K-pop bands, BlackPink scored particularly higher in terms of followers, listenership, style and fashion quotient and highest positive sentiments. An unbelievable but an undeniable choice for Oreo.

(Strategic Baseline):

BlackPink In your Oreo

Our creative strategy was to foster intimate yet playful engagement hinged on experiences that brought the fans and the brand closer together. Our connection plan brought this to life by powering an authentic and personal experience with our BlackPink Fandom, converting buzz to business.

We call it the Fandom, Flywheel.

The Fandom Flywheel strategy works like a rolling ball on a slope, we activate the brand push, and the fans take over the command, rolling the campaign at a greater speed.

Step 01             Entice the Fans: seed the buzz through k-communities, k-influencers, interest segments

Step 02             Socialize the Experience: be talk of the town with ownable collectibles, social catalysts, and personalization that brings the icon to you, boosting participation and sharing.

Step 03             Convert Buzz to Business: collect data, link to commerce and activate in-store.

Execution

(Overall Campaign Execution):

Step 01 Entice the Fans

Each of the BlackPink star launched a teaser from their respective handles to build curiosity. Further through K-communities and special publishers, we created a sneak peek of the campaign along with an exclusive ‘Special Edition’ BlackPink pack with Shoppee on 12.12. Within 12 minutes of the launch at 12am, the packs got sold out!

Owned channels were used to build the hype without any announcements.

We contextually targeting curated YouTube lineups and synchronizing our offline targeting with digital listener behaviour with 1.3Bn video Views priming the awareness build.

Step 02 Socialize the Experience

To be culture first, we had to be social first.

The campaign officially launched with the BlackPink special edition packs in stores with special black and pink cookies - an homage to the colors of the band. Oreo introduced BlackPink collectible cards inside the multipacks, encouraging consumers to collect all 10!

We amplified the social connection, through a TikTok Hashtag Challenge and Brand Effects, in 5 markets. Our audiences could use the filter and be a K-Pop star themselves lip-syncing BlackPink hits. This drove a  massive 3MM UGC creations from fans and 3.2B video views , creating immense virality.

The ‘Social First’ product packaging became the gateway for fans to receive AI powered personalized messages from the BlackPink band members. Consumers scanned the pack, filled in their names and got back a personalized greeting from the BlackPink star of their choice. These messages became social media-worthy content that fans proudly shared. The Blink fanbase was leveraged along with KOLs and legit Blink fandom leaders.  

A special concert experience was created with TikTok, where the fans could be part of an immersive experience of a BlackPink concert, performing in-sync with the theme music.  

The microsite, saw a Total of 7.9MM site visits between Jan – May, capturing 7MM Unique Users onsite, and driving social engagement with over 8billion #tag views.

Step 03 Convert Buzz to Business

We optimized the campaign to gain first party data and intelligence, to collect close 1MM+ unique profiles of our fans in first party data, to gain insights and retarget the Blink fanbase in succeeding campaigns. We linked to commerce with significant gains in purchase intent and 865K GMV at a ROI of unprecedented 3.74 on ecommerce for Oreo.

Results

(Evaluation):

(Impact):

And the results, as we mentioned, were astounding.