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Oreo’s support gay pride on Facebook

by Ben Romberg | 27.06.2012
The cookie brand Oreo’s posted a picture to their Facebook Page on the 25th of June in support of Gay Pride celebrations in America by inserting a rainbow into the normally cream-coloured center of their biscuit under the caption “proudly support love!”

The response was immediate and sparked a huge debate on their Facebook Page, with customers advocating both for and against its support of Gay Pride. As of writing, the post received over 200,000 likes, 60,000 shares and over 30,000 comments which is huge increase in engagement from their usual posts.

Whatever you think of the creative or the coverage of the campaign, Oreo definitely hit the sweet spot. They (or rather their agency) understood exactly what talking points people engage with (based around the event) on social networks, tying up the concept very neatly in a clever piece of creative that light-heartedly gives support to a worthy cause.

The huge boost in engagement is only part of the return this campaign delivered, by getting off the fence and siding with Gay Pride, Oreo as a brand will have shown a loyalty that will resonate with their consumers on and offline, despite the fact that at the end of the day, it is just a chocolate cookie.

Brands often pick the “safe route” celebrations of Valentine’s Day or Christmas as a way to drive their messaging on their social media channels, avoiding controversy and often using generic copy that doesn’t inspire and lacks that creative idea to kick start engagement.

Hats off to Oreo for facing the controversy and showing their true colours, regardless of the potential for a backlash from some of their community instead trusting the broader majority of right thinking users to step in and self-moderate the comments on the Page. The conversation they started has moved off their Facebook page and into blogs, forums and reddit showing a broad reach and wide exposure that has the brand at the heart of the discussion.