OREO’s brand essence is all about being playful. But we were in the midst of an intensifying pandemic, nationwide protests, the craziest presidential election of our lives, and growing stress and anxiety all around the world.

So the world’s most playful cookie wanted to help and give the world some much-needed relief. We had to cut through all the tough conversations going on throughout social media with a playful campaign that stayed true to the brand’s personality—all without being tone-deaf.

When we came across a fan’s tweet alerting us that, on top of everything else happening, an asteroid was coming towards the Earth and could destroy OREOs (along with the world), we couldn’t take any chances.

Instead of just replying to the tweet, we ventured to Svalbard, Norway in the Arctic Circle, and built a real apocalypse-proof vault to safeguard OREOs for all eternity, inspired by the Global Seed Vault.

The OREO Doomsday Vault was designed to hold a large stockpile of OREOs, the OREO recipe, and powdered milk, and it was located 5 miles down the road from the original Global Seed Vault.

We’ll start with the obvious—2020 was a hard year. For any brand to break through, especially weeks before the US election, they needed to walk the line of being on brand (for OREO, that’s playful) and not tone-deaf. The tweet from Olivia Gordon came at the perfect time.

The key message for the campaign was to lean into the real life situation—OREO listened to a fan tweet and built a real doomsday vault to protect the cookies. The idea brought together everything OREO stands for, a brand that’s playful, loves their fans, and can react quickly and playfully to cultural moments big and small.

The target audience was truly the Internet. From fans of the brand to individuals scrolling through their exhausting news feeds looking for a break. And as the effort picked up, other brands joined in too, helping to spread the message even further.

Two weeks after the original fan tweet, construction of the vault started, as we began teasing the idea on social. And a few days later, we announced our OREO Doomsday Vault on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

A long-form film followed the vault’s design and construction, telling the story of the architect in charge who was dealing with some real obstacles and a crazy timeline, all taken from our real-life process.

Plus, we pushed out an additional 40 pieces of content on social media, including a letter from OREO HQ, limited edition packs designed to survive the apocalypse, and six ‘behind-the-scenes’ videos.

Our followers and dozens of brands immediately wanted in, so we engaged with them and even made a real-time response video to a fan conspiracy theory.

And fans also wanted to help, so we held security guard interviews on our DMs

415+ earned media placements

100+ million impressions

20+ major brands asking to join our vault

75% more engagement than a standard OREO post

286% ROI

#1 share of voice on social of all brands in October