Oreo’s daily twist campaign

Whether you dunk them, twist them, lick them, or just straight up
devour them, Oreo has not only established itself as "Milk's Favorite
Cookie," but the world's best-selling cookie. Bringing in over $3.28
billion in global sales for 2014, this classic cookie is not one to be
messed with.

Nabisco has come a long way since manufacturing its first Oreo
in 1912, introducing a plethora of different flavors and expanding its
business to over 100 countries. Despite how tasty these new
flavors may be, they are not the driving factor behind the cookie
franchise's most recent success.

Oreo's real-time advertising has engaged tons of new customers and

turned them into a social media powerhouse. With their intriguing
images and witty banter, Oreo's follower ratio is through the roof.
Keebler, take notes.

"You Can Still Dunk in the Dark"

The Baltimore Ravens may have won Super Bowl XLVII,
but Oreo was the real MVP. After the infamous blackout following
Beyonce's killer half-time performance, Oreo wasted no characters or
money on this quick tweet. Within the hour, there were over 15,000
retweets and 20,000 Facebook likes for this simple one-liner.

Not to mention, it was tweeted within minutes of the blackout, saving

Oreo the $4 million it would have spent if it had run as a commercial
during the game. The popularity of the tweet not only helped Oreo
dominate on social media during the Super Bowl, but it also got big
names like the Huffington Post and Forbes to talk about their success
as well. Touchdown, Oreo.

The "Daily Twist" Campaign

In 2012, Oreo celebrated being a century old with their "Daily Twist"
Campaign. For 100 days, milk's favorite cookie posted their responses
to what was happening in real-time each day in cookie form, of
course. Starting on June 25th, the campaign kicked off with the image
of a rainbow-filled cookie celebrating Gay Pride Month.

National Bullying Prevention, Shark Week, the Mars Rover landing,

and many more buzzworthy events also got their own customized
Oreo throughout the hundred days. With the presence of these ads
on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr, Oreo saw a 110%
growth in fan interaction per social media post.

"Wonderfilled"
The bright side has Oreos, right? With the "Wonderfilled" campaign,
the cookie franchise tries to rid the world of its cynicism, one Oreo at a
time. The anthem features historically infamous characters, like the
Big Bad Wolf and a vampire, who turn a new leaf with the help of an
Oreo and encourage a more pleasant ending.

Despite these childhood stories and animations, this commercial was

actually aimed towards adults. Oreo believes that adults have to be
reminded of their sense of wonder, and this campaign helps achieve
that.

This ambitious advertising move helped Oreo establish itself as not

only the world's favorite cookie, but one of the world's most iconic
brands. Oreo turned its focus to the bigger picture and incorporated
values that anyone, regardless of age, can identify with.

Oreo pride campaign

On June 25th, 2012, a picture of an Oreo cookie with six layers of
frosting in the colors of the rainbow flag was posted on Kraft Nabisco’s
Facebook page. The image was accompanied by the captions “June
25 | Pride” and “Proudly support love!” in recognition of LGBT Pride
Month in the United States. The Facebook image post was instantly
met by polarized opinions between supporters and critics of gay
marriage, quickly escalating into a lengthy debate of more than 23,000
comments in the first 24 hours. As of December 11th, 2012, the
Facebook post has accumulated more than 297,700 likes, 90,700
shares and 60,400 comments.
A History of the Oreo Cookie
Many people have grown up with Oreo cookies. The "twist or dunk" debate has
been around for decades, with one side claiming that the chocolate
sandwich cookie is best separated into two halves and eaten as such and the other
side claiming that the treats are meant to be enjoyed by dunking them straight
into a glass of milk. Whatever camp you are a part of, it is safe to say that most
find the cookie delicious.

Oreos have become an icon of 20th-century culture. From Oreo-based dessert

recipes spreading on the internet to festival favorites featuring the beloved
cookie, it is clear that the world has a soft spot for this famous snack, and the
cookie has only grown in popularity since it was invented in 1912, propelling it to
the rank of best-selling cookie in the United States.

Oreos Are Introduced

In 1898, several baking companies merged to form the National Biscuit
Company, also called Nabisco. This was the beginning of the corporation that
would create the Oreo cookie. In 1902, Nabisco rolled out Barnum's Animal
Crackers for the first time, making them famous by selling them in a little box
designed like a circus animal cage that featured an attached string so that the box
could be hung on Christmas trees.

In 1912, Nabisco had an idea for a new cookie, though it wasn't exactly its own—
two chocolate disks with a creme filling in between had been done already by the
Sunshine Biscuits company in 1908, which called the cookie Hydrox. While
Nabisco has never named Hydrox as its inspiration, the Oreo cookie invented
four years after the world was introduced to Hydrox closely resembled the biscuit
that preceded it: two decorated chocolate discs with white creme sandwiched
between them.

Despite its potentially suspicious origination, the Oreo made a name for itself and
quickly surpassed the popularity of its competitor. Nabisco made sure to file for a
trademark on the new cookie soon after its creation on March 14, 1912. The
request was granted on August 12, 1913.
The Mysterious Name
When the cookie was first introduced in 1912, it appeared as an Oreo Biscuit,
which changed in 1921 to an Oreo Sandwich. There was another name change in
1937 to Oreo Creme Sandwich before the company settled on the name that was
decided upon in 1974: Oreo Chocolate Sandwich Cookie. Despite the roller
coaster of official name changes, most people have always referred to the cookie
simply as an "Oreo."

So where did the "Oreo" part even come from? The people at Nabisco aren't quite
sure anymore. Some believe that the cookie's name was taken from the French
word for gold, or (the main color on early Oreo packaging).

Others claim the name stemmed from the hill-shaped test version that never even
made it to store shelves, inspiring the cookie prototype to be named the Greek
word for mountain, oreo.

Some speculate that the name is a combination of taking the "re" from "cream"
and sandwiching it, just like the cookie, between the two "o"s in "chocolate"—
making "o-re-o."

Still others offer the bare explanation that the cookie was named Oreo because it
was short, fun, and easy to pronounce.

Though the true naming process may never be revealed, that has not affected
Oreo sales. As of 2019, it was estimated that 450 billion Oreo cookies have been
sold since 1912, planting it firmly at the top of cookie sales and winning over the
hearts of millions.

The Oreo Biscuit was renamed to Oreo Sandwich in 1921, then to Oreo Creme'
Sandwich in 1948 and finally it became Oreo Chocolate Sandwich Cookie in 1974. Its
design has mainly stayed the same with only few changes over the years. The first
design was simple – with the name Oreo and a wreath at the edge. In 1924, the
company augmented the original design to go with a 1921 name tweak. The 1924
design added a ring of laurels and two turtledoves. Twenty years later, in 1952, is when
today’s elaborate, design first appeared.

Over the years, Nabisco has developed several other Oreo products. Among them,
Nabisco introduced a lemon-filled Oreo in the 1920s which was later discontinued.
Double Stuf, featuring twice as much cream filling as the original Oreo appeared in
1975. Golden Oreos are vanilla cookies with the same vanilla frosting as the
original Oreos. Golden Chocolate Creme Oreos, known as the „Uh-Oh Oreo“ until
2007, are the reverse of the original cookie — vanilla cookies with chocolate cream
frosting.

In the United Kingdom, following stocking of Oreo (as Oreo biscuits) in the supermarket
chain Sainsbury's, Kraft decided to fully launch the Oreo across the UK, repackaged in
the more familiar British tube design. In January 2006, healthier (and more expensive)
non-hydrogenated vegetable oil was put into Oreos instead of partially hydrogenated
vegetable oil, which in turn previously replaced lard.

Beginning in the early 2010s, Oreo began releasing limited edition runs of cookies with
more exotic flavours. These typically appear in stores only once, but Birthday Cake
Oreos, celebrating 100th anniversary, originally introduced in 2012, have since
become permanently available). Other varieties over the years have included “triple
double” Oreos, green tea Oreos, blueberry ice cream Oreos, dulce de leche Oreos, and
organic Oreos.

Nabisco's Oreo marketing efforts have been noticed over the years with various
successful ads, including their tweet „You can still dunk in the dark“ using
Superbowl's 39-minutes power blackout as inspiration. In 2009, The Guinness Book of
World Records' largest taste test takes place in Madrid, Spain. 1,471 participants
compare the taste of an Oreo to an imitation cookie. Each taster is given a glass of milk
for dunking.

A bit of fun trivia for Oreo aficionados, New York's 15th Street at Ninth Avenue is called
Oreo Way because that is the birthplace of this delicious treat. How do you like your
Oreo cookies?

Oreo design

When the National Biscuit Company introduced the Oreo cookie in

March of 1912, there was no mistaking its origins. It was a blatant
knock-off of Sunshine Biscuits's Hydrox, a double-wafer chocolate
and cream sandwich snack that capitalized on the popularity of a
similar home-baked treat that had been circulating since the mid-
1800s.

The Hydrox was introduced in 1908. But Sunshine had relatively

little of the advertising or production power of Nabisco, which was
formed in 1898 as a conglomerate of baking companies: The fact
that it beat Oreo to shelves by four years was irrelevant. Consumers
largely passed up Hydrox and opted for Oreos, which were sold in
bulk for 30 cents a pound.

The two cookies had more in common than a similar taste: Both
used cookies that were ornate, with wreaths adorning the outer side.
In 1952, possibly in an attempt to further distance themselves from
the competition, Nabisco opted to change the Oreo design to a
slightly more complex pattern that has invited comparisons to
everything from the Knights Templar to the Freemasons.

Were conspiracy theorists focusing too hard on the humble Oreo?

Or has the cookie been trying to tell us something all along?

Morgan via Flickr // CC BY 2.0

The Oreo wasn’t the only snack Nabisco introduced in 1912. The
company also produced Veronese biscuits and Mother Goose
cookies, the latter embossed with characters from popular nursery
rhymes. As with Hydrox, it had become common to create cookie
molds that could imprint a distinctive shape on top of the crunchy
wafers. It's a practice that likely has origins in Europe, where
producers of communion wafers used molds to create edible
religious symbols.

Mass-market cookie businesses had more cynical motivations. It

was in their best interests to create distinctive patterns that helped
consumers distinguish one product from another. Nabisco’s Lorna
Doone cookies had a vaguely atomic symbol along with the cookie’s
name; Hydrox opted for flower petals in addition to wreaths. Even
out of the package, it was easy to tell one sugary snack from the
other.

In 1924, Nabisco made a slight alteration to the Oreo, adding turtle

doves on either end of the cookie’s name and enlarging the font. It
remained unchanged for nearly 30 years, until 1952, when a former
Nabisco mail room employee named William Turnier was tasked
with building a better cookie.

Turnier had arrived at the company in 1923, running correspondence

for executives before he befriended workers on the food engineering
side of their headquarters in New York City. At night, he pursued
his GED: Turnier had dropped out of school over bullying he had
experienced as a result of being afflicted with polio.

“He was about 18 months old when he got it,” Bill Turnier, a
professor of law at the University of North Carolina and the late
designer’s son, tells mental_floss. “He was a very bright guy and
should’ve gone on to college, but people made fun of his limp and
he couldn’t take it. Bullying is nothing new.”

Shadowing creative employees, Turnier developed a new skill set —

industrial engineer—and was eventually hired on to revamp Nutter
Butter as well as their line of Milk-Bone dog treats.

It’s not known what direction, if any, Turnier was given when it was
time to give the Oreo a facelift. The only thing he kept was the
cookie’s name in the center. In place of the wreaths, Turnier
positioned an array of four-petal flowers. Surrounding the word
“Oreo” was a colophon, or emblem, that was a circle with two
crossed lines at the top. It was the same design Nabisco had been
using to adorn its company logo.

“That was his idea,” Turnier says. “That design goes back to monks
who used it on the bottom of manuscripts they copied in Medieval
times. It was a sign of craft—saying they did the best they could.
Nabisco really liked that.”

Satisfied with Turnier’s blueprint, which allowed the company to

create dough molds to his specifications, the Oreo underwent its
cosmetic change in 1952; Turnier continued to work for Nabisco
until retiring in 1973. It was unlikely he had any awareness that his
design for the Oreo would become a kind of Rorschach test for
snack lovers, with people finding subversive messages in the way he
illustrated the cookie.
Spoon Universit y

In theories that have become easier to disseminate with the advent

of the internet, some Oreo observers have noted that Turnier’s four-
leaf flower looks remarkably like a cross pattée, a symbol that the
Knights Templar carried into the Crusades in the 12 th century. The
two-bar cross could be construed as the Cross of Lorraine, also from
the Knights Templar. Alternately, both could be a subtle nod to the
Freemasons, a secret society that functions to this day.

How much of this is inferred and how much did Turnier intend?
According to his son, the elder Turnier's choices were aesthetic in
nature. “He just liked the look of the flowers. He could never
understand when people would locate him demanding some kind of
explanation. ‘Why did you use a four-petal flower? There aren’t
any!’ Here’s a man in his 80s, and he’d call me up quite distressed.

“And of course, there is a four-petal flower, the fireweed. We had

some when I was growing up in our backyard.”

Likewise, there was no meaning to the number of ridges—90—that

surround the cookie’s margin. “He said he probably used a compass
to make sure they were evenly-spaced,” Turnier says. The smaller
triangles near the word “Oreo” were probably inserted to avoid
having any empty space on the cookie’s face.

While Turnier believes his father was not inclined to reference

religious iconography, he does note that one member of his family
held an intriguing position. “My grandfather was a Freemason,” he
says. “But my dad was Catholic.” Though he was probably exposed
to Freemason imagery during his life, Turnier had no intention of
delivering a secret handshake to cookie lovers.

And y Melton via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

Nabisco has never offered an official explanation for the

design. They do not, in fact, fully acknowledge Turnier had
anything to do with it, insisting that their records don’t account for
who was responsible for the cookie’s alteration in 1952—only that
Turnier worked as a design engineer during that period of time.

Turnier, who keeps a copy of his father’s original 1952 blueprint

hanging in his Chapel Hill, North Carolina home, believes the Oreo
was simply adorned with easy-to-replicate designs that were
possible thanks to the cookie’s durable texture. “The dough dictates
what you can do with the cookie,” he says. “The dough for Oreo,
you could almost make a coin out of it. You can insert a lot of
detail. And then people look for meaning.”

The elder Turnier died in 2004. In contrast to the theories and

mystery that have surrounded his work, the etching on his
tombstone is unmistakable: Set in the upper right corner just above
his name is a fully adorned Oreo cookie.