Pioneer Marketer of Cookie and Digitalized Marketing Revolutionary - Oreo

Declaration

The present anthropological society we live in this era is one based solely upon dynamism, uncertainty, and complexity. The market forces of globalization have brought together the private entities: individuals and organizations of the world closer than ever before; business organizations are no exception to this fact. Additionally, this has resulted in a socio-economic and political change in general due to the connectedness.

Due to the advent of the new markets in the world, business organizations need to evolve their existing functional and strategic management processes in response to these changes in their external environments. Furthermore, this general level of hyper-competition has led to consistently innovative changes made by businesses to maintain their market share and remain profitable. Thereby businesses have been adopting rapid changes to their own establishments to gain an edge in the market environment.

In this essay, I will be investigating from a marketing perspective; the strategies implemented by Oreo, particularly through an online social media presence, and scrutinize the advantage and disadvantages related to these aspects of the marketing mix adopted by the business in-depth, and provide a judgment in terms of conclusion as to whether this is a favorable or unfavorable practice to the business.

Introduction

Oreo biscuits are certainly a fundamental part of our childhood and adolescent years as we grow up. They are chocolatey cookies with vivid and delicious flavoring and most individuals have a personal attachment with this brand of pleasing and fulfilling cookies. The brand has such a great presence in the biscuit market that consumers still argue on the best way to eat them-dunk them in milk or twist them apart to have a taste of the flavored filling in the middle.

The biscuits are said to have been made by Nabisco- which was a conglomerate of several baking companies in the USA, and were first made in 1912 and hold a patented trademark with “registration number 0093009 on August 12, 1913.” Since then the biscuits have been constantly making varied varieties such as “fudge-covered”, “Halloween” and “Christmas” and increasing their product line and profitability. The product currently owned by Kraft Foods Inc. (also known as Mondelez International) has now “grown to become the bestselling cookie brand of the 21st century generating $1.5 billion in global annual revenues”.

However, in 2013, Oreo went from being just an old cookie brand to a pioneering leader in modern-day marketing personality. This astonishing incident occurred in the Super Bowl tournament, where due to floodlight failure the stadium went dark and Oreo live-tweeted the “You can still dunk in the dark” tweet which went viral and received more than 15000 retweets and has been increasing their online social media presence ever since. This essay, therefore, will investigate into the theoretical aspects of this unique marketing mix adopted by Oreo and its in detail analysis and evaluation will be effectively formulated and conveyed through this research assignment.

Theoretical analysis of Oreo’s Marketing Mix

Oreo’s marketing mix involves identifying customers’ desires for the type and flavor of cookies, creating a taste which will satisfy the cravings of consumers and be to their liking through anticipation, and eventually producing and supplying their product line to the targeted consumers and ultimately satisfy their desires for monetary purposes. Additionally, to effectively market their products Oreo also engages in considering various other factors such as quality, cost-effectiveness, attractiveness, and availability of its biscuits.

Furthermore, through efficient advertisement and engagement to customers' sense-perception Oreo strives to be an attractive biscuit choice for its target market, over other competitive brands to increase sales and thereby the profitability of the business. This certainly is a challenging task for a business due to ever-fluctuating and development factors of the biscuit market, changes in trends, and at a basic level the challenges of interactions with its potential consumers.

In response to these changes and uncertainties Oreo has been efficacious to drive and lead an evolutionary marketing mix which is both powerful and proactive in meeting its objectives due to its real-time marketing coup, with producing artistic and culturally relevant Twitter feeds and Facebook posts, which can be interpreted as both spontaneous and simplistic in approach and mark the brand's transition from being a self-involved advertiser to a sprightly content maker with its invigoration, informational and humorous posts which keep the consumer engaged with the brand at an emotional level and therefore create an ingredient for an effective branding process.

Not only is Oreo’s social media advertisement and online presence a very effective communication tool it also provides and unique marketing opportunity as the marketers can connect directly to the customers using online communities, social networking applications, blogs, and other means. Furthermore, the relationship between the brand and the cookie eaters has become one based on mutual trust and goodwill due to the following factors- increased level of communication and accountability among the two stakeholders, innovative and attractive means to power advertisements aimed at the targeted audience, higher engagement with the consumer.

These factors are primarily a result of allowing the consumers to share their own opinions on the cookies, interactions between the consumers themselves, and a common sense of being part of a community which objectively is interested in the business or its product line. Oreo has been building the quality and effectiveness of this online presence in the following methods:

Examples of online social media presence of Oreo:

• By posting interesting content frequently
• Using (#) hashtags for better and easy reference among
• Receiving social reviews, and this promotes word-of-mouth among consumers
• Investing in infographics, memes and relevant pictorial references in the posts for increased consumer perception and attractive appeal
• Micro feed creation for social feeds
• Creating games, puzzles and other interactive content
• Running Pinterest treasure hunts to stimulate their consumers for adventure
• Creating a complimentary Pinterest board
• Hosting twitter chats with audience
• Test out retargeted advertisement material
• Sharing products becomes easy amongst the group and feedback is open
• Open an online purchase platform on e-commerce applications
• Aligning posts with trending events
• Running influencer campaigns

Advantages of utilizing online social media presence as a marketing tool for Oreo

Wider approach and publicity to the consumers, in regarding building a strong brand name

The business is constantly establishing a presence on all popular forms of online media: Although Oreo’s Twitter presence is obvious @OREO’s, but the brand has also been able to create a benchmark for themselves on Pinterest with 6,000 people, Instagram with more than 248,000, and Facebook with 38,000,000 individuals as well. Through this, they are effectively able to advertise and reach a wide target market in almost every demography and their fans and consumers can find them and follow them up to receive new information about the brand’s upcoming products, campaigns, and events. Overall this is an exemplary method of public relations for a brand of cookies.

Better consumer satisfaction

It is a human personality trait to attract attention, Oreo provides their consumers with great care and attention for their responses on their social media platforms. Therefore, customers really appreciate it when they get personalized attention and response and not an automated one. This puts the customer at a receiving end and increases the marketers' advantage position. Therefore, this increases the brand loyalty of consumers towards preferring Oreo cookies over the other alternatives.

According to The Social Habitat, 53%of Americans who follow brands on social media are very likely to remain loyal to that brand. Additionally, they are very interactive and usually epic in their response to their fans, these responses are often quick, witty, and notorious for bonding with the fans at a deeper emotional level and feel like a “human touch”, which represents the brand's commitment and corporate culture and creates an ever-patronizing fan for its cookies, and even if individuals are not fans of the cookies they can participate in other aspects of the communal relationship and events offered by the business.

Cost-effective factor

Social media marketing is almost the most cost-effective method for advertising any commodity. The process of creating a new profile and signing in is free for most social media platforms, with very few additional charges. A lower level of investment and greater returns thereby helps Oreo to reduce their advertisement expenses. Therefore, it can work as a great tool for growing your following and reaching more users with lesser costs levied to the marketing.

Helps businesses gain market insight

A business organization can gain immensely if it considers the consumer’s needs, opinions, and interests, particularly in interest to the product line or company profile. The two-way feedback mechanism which is common to most social media is an effective communication tool which enables businesses to gather this information and form meaningful relationships with potential and current consumers. This research is certainly very important to the business as means to improve their operations to get an advantage over the other competitors and increase turn-overs.

Approachability to the consumers as a news feed to keep them engaged with the brand and current events

The marketing team at Oreo’s are involved with the world in general and associates their brand with social congregations and events to build an excellent online appeal to its followers. The ability of the marketing team to work on the pulse when it comes to current events is astonishing and very informing. For example, Oreo has been associating their cookies to events such as the birth of a giant panda baby into the world, the newest prince of England. The important point here is that the brand utilizes trending topics to increase its presence and visibility online.

Disadvantages of utilizing online social media presence as a marketing tool for Oreo

Competitors can study and imitate Oreo’s marketing strategy

Social media marketing can easily be accessible to the competitors of the business and will be of great assistance to them to analyze and understand the business’s motives and approach to its consumers, this puts the business at an increased risk of being outdone in its marketing practices.

Requires an efficient and qualified team of employees to manage the social media accounts

As the engagement with the consumer on social media is of priority importance, thereby the communication with the fellow community members of the social media platform will have to be very sophisticated and appreciable, as the ethical elements will have to be considered with great importance and maintain the decorum of the account. For this, the business must recruit friendly, witty, and intelligent human resources for the expected quality of the interaction with the consumers.

Returns on investment take time to be effective

Social media marketing has very few monetary costs associated, however, the time factor plays a major role in this form of marketing. Usually, returns are not achieved overnight as building a rapport and consumer base is very necessary and is a time-consuming process but will eventually be considered a long-term strategy when compared to traditional marketing methods such as word of mouth.

Negative criticism and feedback can tarnish a brand name

As consumers can comment and provide personal responses on the platform, it is very legitimate to believe that not all consumers will be satisfied and content with the business’s products or operations. And if negative information is posted on these platforms, it certainly has a chance to adversely impact the established relations and public relations maintained between Oreo and its consumers/followers.

Oreo needs to face an ever-changing technological platform to be up to date

The technological advancements are very dynamic and require a certain level of specialization to cope up with the advances made in this field. For example, Myspace was a popular social media platform in the start of the century, however, has now lost its charm. In fact, it can be established that popular sites are solely dependent on changing patterns and trends in the market. In Addition, Facebook changed its algorithm in 2018 and shook the marketing world as lesser feeds will show up on users’ news feeds. Therefore, this factor of uncertainty is out of the business's control, and examining this aspect is very important when the marketing strategy is supposed to be determined to ensure and predict the net advantage to the business.

Conclusion

In conclusion to the critical information gathered and analyzed in this research paper; it is very clear that Oreo has been able to establish itself as a pioneer marketer for a commodity as simple as a cookie and has certainly led the digitalized marketing revolution. Through its innovative methods of reaching out to current and potential customers, by engaging its followers in an intrinsically invigorating and participatory manner

through the news feed to keep them engaged to the brand and current events at the same time. The followers of the Oreo social media pages online tend to be very satisfied with the brand as they have an opportunity to be cared for and recognized by the brand due to an efficient two-way communication which is based on trust and mutual understanding. This communication not only helps establish and maintain a cordial relationship with the increased ability of the business to build a strong brand name and loyalty for its product lines. Furthermore, due to effective communication, the business is also able to gain accurate market insight which has enabled it to improve its products and operations; eventually to outcompete its major rival, and provide better consumer satisfaction. Lastly the business benefits due to the cost-efficient method of marketing in form of marketing on social media.

Although, the benefits are immensely well recognized Oreo should also be able to adjust and provide secure means to cope up with the following disadvantages associated with the social media marketing strategies. The social media accounts require a very efficient and cordial team of employees to manage the approach and content of the post, replies, etc. and this form of marketing is very less costly in terms of monetary costs however requires time to build a follower base, and thereby ROI is a little delayed when compared to alternative traditional marketing means such as word of mouth.

Additionally, negative criticism of any kind can be spread amongst the whole community, which might end up tarnishing the business's reputation and brand name. Also, the competitors can study and imitate the marketing strategy adopted by the business and understand the organizational objectives the business wants to fulfill through the marketing campaigns. Lastly, the business should be able to adapt to the ever-changing technological advances of the business and thereby recruit a team to be very efficient with the technological aspects of this marketing form.

In conclusion, the marketing strategy of Oreo is certainly one of a kind and very beneficial to the business in the short and long term as it invigorates with its customers with a very unusual form of interaction and therefore has been increasing its sales annually and benefitting from the quick adaptability to newer forms of marketing in today's drastically changing and innovative business environment.