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Everybody wants to be like Oreo, but only a handful of brands should want that.

For everyone who has thought in any way that there brand should be more like Oreo, let me share with you a story. Last week I attended an agency meeting held by the world’s biggest Social Network where we discussed what the options were to advertise and perform on their platform. For my ambitious and eager Social Team this was mostly old news. Although, one of my most talented team members remarked that their inspiration session was the best. An Irish ‘Rock Star’ that presented this particular piece was happy to tend to his eager audience. His fluid speech and free use of rougher facets of the English language supported a great range of creative examples. However, towards the end of the presentation he shared Oreo’s Daily Twist campaign. For them, and for everyone who has been living under a stone these past two years it was one of the most successful uses of Social Media to date.

Oreo, an outspoken, funny and cheeky chocolate cookie brand, decided to celebrate their hundredth birthday. They created one hundred pieces of content depicting either an interesting historical or current event that happened to be commemorated on that particular day. You may remember their famous creative post of a tire track on a red Oreo, representing the day when the NASA’s Mars Rover landed on the planet. This campaign, which ran for a hundred days, still seems to grab our imagination two years later. Therefore, it may seem natural that brands, which have heard of the campaign, felt a close affinity with this use of Social Media. Sadly, most brands only look at the hype and engagement surrounding the campaign. “I want our brand to be like Oreo”, is a phrase that I have heard numerous times in the past two years.

Then you will be able to imagine me breathe deeply after which I explain to the brand’s stakeholders: “Your product is selling coffee tables, and you don’t have a Social Media team of ten people or $1,000,000 to spend”. They respond: “it doesn’t have to be exactly like that campaign, but more in the spirit of it”. Every brand can or should want to aspire to be like Oreo, yet most of the brands in this world do not have a brand awareness like Oreo (75%+), or a budget that will enable them to hire a small Social Media agency that works around the clock for a hundred days. Brands generally use media to create awareness, brand recognition and engage with their consumers to and hit their marketing targets, and although Oreo still needs all of these characteristics, they have found a niche with portraying events and were able to deliver it on a creative canvas, their cookie, to utilize that niche successfully.

If all brands would be like Oreo, they would all have to feel outspoken, funny and cheeky. True, most brands have no true identity, and some find it difficult to express, emphasize or even convert what they are about. Some brands are still unaware that if you have been loudly shouting (read: humbly expressing) their ideas and products across traditional media towards their target audience, and they now expect to have a conversation with them when they suddenly start your Social Media communications, showing “that human side” of the conversation. Interesting story; a team member made a great analogy of creating a personality for a brand on Social Media by comparing it to an ‘introduction in a coffee shop’. Imagine you walk into a coffee shop and find your brand sitting at a table, is he or she reading a newspaper, a magazine or a book? Is she composing poetry on the Samsung Note 4 (you see what I did there?) or is he listening to music? What kind of music is he into? Would this person be easily approachable and give you a hug, or would she formally shake hands? All of these characteristics are important when you are starting with your Social Media communications. They come into play when deciding on an overarching strategy, a channel strategy and yes, even a campaign strategy. So only when your brand is exactly like Oreo, or wants to represent themselves as such, could you have a campaign like ‘The Daily Twist’.

The simple brilliance and creative uniqueness of that campaign is attainable for you, no matter what you are selling. The approach of Social for your brand could be based on the use of insights and unique positioning, amazing use of media targeting and/or the use of creative. You don’t have to spend crazy budgets or hire an enormous team (although some resources do help). You could actually do it, ‘not like Oreo’, and aim to be better by staying true to what you brand stands for. They are not selling event tickets, banking products or cars, they are not about supermarket concepts or luxury bracelets. Remember, in not being them, you are being you, which is one of the most important elements when it comes to representing your brand on Social. Good luck and be brave.