For the first time in its history, OREO decided to do a campaign where kids were the enemy. To give OREO Thins its own place in the OREO lineup, we took parents’ complaints on social media about their kids stealing their cookies, and turned them into a complete redesign of the product’s packaging and a social media campaign aimed only at adults. To make THINS visible to everyone, we decided to hide them, giving half of our cookie pack to brands that have nothing to do with cookies.

OREO THINS were up against awareness issues. Our brief was to establish OREO Thins as a cultural icon in its own right, while weaving in the holistic OREO “Stay Playful” messaging. So our objective was to create a campaign, with packaging at the center—3,000 packs limited edition packs—that would make THINS stand on its own, carve its own audience and have a moment to shine.

Because they’re thinner and lighter, THINS are the perfect OREO for adults. So we decided to make an OREO campaign focused only on adults. And not just that, a campaign that resonated with them, tackling a problem that adults had with kids: children stealing their cookies.

Giving this edge would make THINS stand out among the OREO portfolio, while keeping the playful spirit of the brand.

A big group of adults was already sharing some problems they had with their OREOs. Their kids were stealing them. Researching parents’ behavior online and their relationship to our brand, we found tweet after tweet of parents complaining about it. We knew we had to come up with a real solution that would resonate with them and make them choose THINS. That’s how the camouflage packs came to life, but the challenge was how to make a campaign to raise awareness of THINS while at the same time hiding them, since the THINS packaging is not as well known as the OREO one. We had to find the right balance that allowed us to show the THINS branding but also the partner side. By giving out half and showing people how to hide it among other things, we were able to hide the packs from kids, and only from kids.

We partnered with four brands to create 3,000 limited-edition camo-packs disguised as stuff kids would never go near. The side of each pack looked like something completely different than a regular old pack of cookies—a Better Home & Gardens cookbook for your kitchen, a pack of Green Giant frozen vegetables for your freezer, a Ford Owners Manual for your car, and a box of Hanes T-Shirts for your drawer. Each pack was created to be hidden in a different room or space, so parents had a choice according to their personal cookie-eating needs. The campaign, including a video by Kevin and Danielle Jonas, along with gifs and in-situ pictures, showed adults how to get these packs and how to use them to avoid kids stealing them.

By hiding the product, we ended up making THINS more visible than ever. The THINS Protection Program was the most successful campaign in the history of the THINS brand. And we gave parents a safe way to eat their cookies while successfully repositioning Thins as the OREO for adults. And ONLY adults!

While the campaign was running, we bantered with 43 different brands who shared their own hiding places. And brands like Axe and Xbox even created ads just for us.

All in all, the campaign earned 8.5M+ organic impressions, 271 media placements, 800K+ social engagement, and increased THINS mentions by 1,019%.