CASE STUDY: How Oreo turned animated emoji into sales growth

Background

The campaign grew out of an insight that Chinese parents and the younger generation find it more and more difficult to spend quality time with the ones they love in today’s busy world. “Even when we are physically together, we can be emotionally apart,” said Rasheed Zhao, associate marketing director, IMC & Digital Media at Mondelēz China.

The 'Play together' campaign created childlike moments to bring people closer.

Execution

The campaign gave people an opportunity to play together simply by using their mobile phones to create and share the animated characters. In addition, the brand and agency turned bus stops into 'Oreo Play Zones', where people could use WeChat as a remote control to display their emoji and print them as stickers. Redemption codes on packages of Oreo unlocked extra emoji, driving sales.

Results

The initiative became a craze, making it onto TV entertainment news after celebrities shared their personal Oreo emoji. In just five weeks, people created 25 million emoji, out of which 3 million were shared with friends and family directly from WeChat.

The initiative generated 1.7 billion impressions across all the leading social networks in China, including WeChat and Weibo.

The brand recorded 50 per cent sales growth within the five weeks after the launch of the campaign, and saw 330,000 redemptions worth US$1 million.

“We are always finding new ways to engage consumers on and offline, and recognize the fundamental importance for clients to create advertisements that are not only eye-catching but also meet the expectations of consumers who demand emotional resonance,” said Adil Zaim, CEO of Carat China.