Oreo emphasizes forging connections in largest holiday campaign to date

Dive Brief:

Oreo launched its biggest holiday campaign to date with an effort that touches across TV, out-of-home (OOH), digital content and e-commerce, according to news shared with Marketing Dive. The snack brand, part of Mondelez International's Nabisco segment, last ran a holiday campaign in 2016.
A spot at the center of the push, "First Christmas," shows an elf stopping by a convenience store to pick up cookies and milk for Santa, who is parked outside in his sleigh. Recognizing the elf is new to the job, the store's sleepy cashier shows Santa's helper how to properly dunk Oreos in milk, and the two quickly become friends. The hashtag #OREOforSanta reinforces themes depicted in the ad, which was developed with The Martin Agency, and how Oreos are Santa's cookie of choice.
Oreo is extending the campaign online and social media through recipes and other digital content, and through OOH advertising in the real world. The brand has added several seasonally themed items to its Shop Oreo e-commerce store, including a $70 ugly sweater. At the retail level, Oreo is promoting seasonal offerings like a peppermint bark variant and holiday tin that features fudge-covered cookies.

Dive Insight:

Oreo is deploying a multichannel approach for its 2019 holiday campaign, which is billed as the brand's largest in terms of investment, per details shared with Marketing Dive. With the more ambitious scale, the effort shows the Nabisco snack maker iterating on several marketing tactics it's previously deployed while tying them together under a creative theme around forging human — or human-elf — connections.

Around the holidays last year, Oreo promoted a music box tin that contained special white fudge cookies and a miniature turntable that shares qualities with a newer DJ mixer the brand is now spotlighting as a potential stocking stuffer. Oreo sold the original music box on Amazon, but has centered its e-commerce play this year on its own online store to drive direct sales. The shift comes as Nabisco parent company Mondelez International continues to lean into e-commerce, including by naming Scrum50 its e-commerce agency of record in February.

From a messaging perspective, the campaign mirrors creative trends that have emerged this year around encouraging civility and togetherness in fraught social times. "First Christmas" intends to align with Nabisco's broader mission of connecting people, according to press materials. Marketers in other categories, like retailer Aéropostale and review platform Trustpilot, have recently launched campaigns that similarly promote unity and acceptance.

With a stronger focus on the holidays, Oreo looks to preserve business momentum that's seen sales rise 8.5% and category market share up 1.4 points year-to-date, per figures shared by a spokesperson. Growth for the brand comes as snacking continues to gain consumer interest, particularly among key younger demographics. A recent Mondelez study conducted with The Harris Poll found 59% of adults worldwide prefer snacking to eating meals, Food Dive reported, with that figure leaping to 70% for surveyed millennials.