2022 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

For years Oreo had spoken to bakers around the globe by showcasing glorious-looking cakes. With this campaign, for the first time ever we were able to engage with a whole new target audience - an audience that tried but failed to create perfect-looking cakes. Across multiple touch points, we connected with them by showing our own cake fails and then encouraged them to share their own fails with us.

Background

For years, Oreo have shown the world how to make the most gorgeous, most delicious cakes. So much so that today Oreo cakes are amongst the world’s most popular cakes. This year for Halloween, Oreo wanted to reach out to new bakers and grow the popularity of its cake recipes.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Our truth was that with Oreo’s cake recipes, your cakes will always taste delicious, no matter how they look. So for Halloween, we showcased cake fails - cakes that turned out unintentionally scary and delivered our message of ‘Looks scary, tastes great’.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Cakes have always been portrayed as these gorgeous, often elaborate pieces of art. The problem is, that while everyone can bake a cake, everyone isn’t an artist. Our strategy was to go in the opposite direction that Oreo had promoted cakes for all this while. For the first time ever, instead of showcasing a mouth-watering cake, we decided to show cake fails - attempts at glory that fell scarily short. We knew we could do that because no matter how bad your cake ended up looking, with our recipe it would still taste delicious.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Duration: 1 week Region: Middle East & Africa (Kuwait & UAE as key must win expat markets followed by KSA) Number of airing placements : 12 placements in total POS in top retailer & modern trade Social conquest across top social platforms (FB, Instagram, FM messenger & ) & UGC on Tiktok & Twitter

List the results (30% of vote)

By representing cake fails in our communication, we were able to connect with a whole new audience. In just one week, we were sent pictures of 189 cakes that looked scary but tasted great. In fact, our cake fails were so popular that we gave them official names and published their recipes.  We also received 87k+ unique page visits on our website and 43k+ recipe downloads.  

Please tell us about the social behaviour and / or cultural insights that inspired your work

There is an unsaid rule that when you showcase cakes, they have to look stunning. This is a rule that every brand, every influencer and even every how-to-make-cake video uploader on YouTube follows. This is a rule that even Oreo have followed for the longest time. But this Halloween, we disrupted that belief and practice by showcasing cakes that were far from looking perfect. For the first time ever, we gave bakers everywhere the one freedom that they craved the most - the freedom to fail knowing that no matter how their cake ended up looking, it would taste just perfect.