The OREO Doomsday Vault blurred the lines between experiential and social, taking a real concrete vault built in Svalbard, Norway to protect our cookies, and turning it into a five-minute film, six ‘behind-the-scenes’ videos, a series of teasers on Instagram Stories and Twitter, real-time conversations with fans and other brands, and limited edition packs designed to survive the apocalypse for fans, press and influencers.

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 had to give the world some much-needed relief.

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 had to cut through all the negative news and the global anxiety with a playful campaign that stayed true to the brand’s personality without being tone-deaf.

So we found a way to touch on the “apocalyptic” sentiment that was dominating the world but with an absurd and comedic approach, using a fan’s tweet about an asteroid that had 0.4% chances of hitting Earth as our motivation and going to extreme lengths to show how much OREOs mean to everyone.

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