De-bunking Oreo's "dunk in the dark" Superbowl tweet

Mark Ritson's latest column cuts through the hype and hysteria around Oreo's impromptu Twitter ad, which ran during the 34-minute blackout that interrupted last week's Superbowl.

In case you missed it, the tweet said “Power Out? No Problem”, accompanied by a picture of a biscuit and the line, “You can still dunk in the dark”. And as Mark explains, it got journalists gushing with praise: The Wall Street Journal says Oreo “culture-Jacked” the event and Forbes called it a “real-time slam dunk”. The Washington Post went even further, asking: “Can Twitter replace the Super Bowl ad?”. 

But as Mark points out, when you dig into the data you get a different story. 

- Oreo Twitter followers: 65,000

- Click through rate: assume a healthy 5%, vs average of 2%

- Opening the link: 3,250

- Re-tweets: 15,000 x average of 208 followers x 5% clicking/opening = 150,000 people

- Oreo US buyers: 80 million

- Reach of ad: 0.2%

In contrast, the good old TV ads in the Superbowl were seen by an estimated 40 million people, or roughly 250 times more reach than Oreos' tweeting campaign. Mark also makes a good point about "clutter". There were 60 different ads during the Superbowl, but he argues that Twitter clutter was worse: 24 million tweets were sent by Americans during the game. 

So, what's the learning from this?

On the one hand, I actually do applaud the Oreos team for being "on the ball", and doing the tweet in real time. I guess it was cheap to do, and there was no media to buy. Second, what Mark doesn't talk about is the amplification of the ad achieved in the media. All those reports on the tweet that Mark mentions expanded the reach of the tweet way beyond the people actually clicking on it.

But, overall, I do still agree with Mark when he says: "My problem is not with Oreo, it’s with the lazy journalists and social media pundits who have hoodwinked a generation of marketers into believing that social media is far more potent than it really is."

Sure, social media has a supporting role to play in amplifying conventional marketing for most mainstream brands, and is not about to replace TV advertising any time soon. Conventional marketing can be planned, targeted, measured and delivers mass reach. In contrast, social media has limited reach, hard to measure and highly unpredictable. Don't forget that for every Oreo Dunk in the Dark tweet that gets picked up by the media, thousands of other brand tweets disappear without trace. 

For more on social media, click here for our research paper "Can Social Media Show you the Money"

Comments

[David]

Danny
I agree with you on the short term "home run" effect of the Oreo tweet.
But 2 points
1. For every home run there are 999+ strikeouts - viral effect is an unpredictable lottery
2. The home run was a short lived pr "blip" with limited long term effect

Like the post said. Well done to Team Oreo.
Shame on the media for over-hyping it
David

[David]

Jim
Sorry but I think you fundamentally missed the point of the post.
It's not me nor Mark Ritson saying social media will replace traditional advertising . It's media hysteria like that around the Oreo twitter non-ad.

And please don't give me that "it's about brand equity not sales " spiel. All marketing should help SMS (sell more stuff) in an on brand way.
David

[Jim Cuene]

I think you've fundamentally missed the point about what Oreo was intending. And i believe you are confusing advertising with brand building. By measuring it in terms of reach and comparing it to the reach available via a traditional media buy, you've mis-characterized the effort.

First, it wasn't an "ad" per se. It was simply a piece of content, made by the brand. That doesn't mean it was an ad. There was no explicit brand message nor any promotional intent. There was no paid media behind it, and it took the form of a normal, everyday tweet.

Second, i think your assumption about the role of social media in a brand communication mix - it could be considered a viable alternative to traditional advertising and may replace it at some point in the distant future- is going to critically limit your critique of what a brand that's active in social media can do over time with social media.

It would be interesting for you, in a future blog post, to take the position of Oreo and articulate why, beyond the "reach", that super bowl effort was important to building their brand equity, not just driving short term sales.

[Danny]

Washington post circulation: 507k
Forbes: 923k
Wall street journal 2.1M
(+ Where's the sausage: 250 uniques per day est)
= 3.5M
= 4.4% reach
time to create the ad = < 1/2 an hour.

I don't think they're doing too badly.

And this shows the value of the secondary effects and hitting that elusive social media home run.

[Magento Development]

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