Oreo Outage Tweet Hits Over 230,000 Tweeters in 1 Minute (PHOTO)
If life hands you lemons, then make lemonade. But if life hands you a blackout during one of the biggest advertising days of the year, then make a new ad and tweet it for free.
Nabisco's Oreo cookie had already won a slot during the Super Bowl commercials. But that didn't stop the cookie maker from making a Twitter debut as well. During what turned into over a 30-minute blackout in the middle of the 2013 Super Bowl, advertisers were quick to jump on a window of opportunity.
Oreo was one of the first and most successful blackout ads to hit social media. The ad was a simple picture of an Oreo on a half lit screen with the caption "You can still dunk in the dark."
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"They saw a real-time opportunity with the power outage and jumped it, doing so in a social voice true to the Oreo brand," Laurie Guzzinati, a spokeswoman for Mondelez, the new parent company of Oreo, wrote in an e-mail to The San Francisco Gate.
Other companies also joined in during the frenzy.
"We can't get your #blackout, but we can get your stains out. #SuperBowl #TidePower," Tide detergent joked in a Tweet.
Audi also had a laugh blaming Mercedes Benz, which is the official sponsor of the stadium, for the black out and promising to send over some "LED lights."
The blackout proved to be the biggest Twitter moment of the night. Over 231,000 tweets per minute were generated during the 35-minute period, according to CNN.
Other from 360i, the advertising company heading Oreo, attributed their fast response to a ready plan.
"We had a mission control set up at our office with the brand and 360i, and when the blackout happened, the team looked at it as an opportunity," agency president Sarah Hofstetter told BuzzFeed. "Because the brand team was there, it was easy to get approvals and get it up in minutes."
