Kraft Foods is wrapping up a four-month-long promotion around its Oreo brand, which offers the chance to compete against National Football League players Peyton and Eli Manning in a cookie twisting, licking and dunking competition.
The Oreo brand is giving people a chance to face off against the Manning brothers in their “second sport”—Oreo Lick Racing. Cookie lovers can enter the Double Stuff Racing League sweepstakes at www.DSRL.com through May 21. Ten grand-prize winners will receive a three-day trip to New Orleans, LA, to take part in the Double Stuf Lick Race Competition July 9-11 and $1,000 spending money. The top winner of the lick-off will win $10,000.
So far, the sweepstakes, which launched in January, has netted more than 500,000 entries, the first promotion of its kind for the Oreo brand, Kraft said. The campaign gives a fun way to engage with the brand and practice the traditional Oreo ritual, Stephen Chriss, director consumer promotions and digital marketing for Kraft Foods, said.
“This program is about bringing consumers together to reinforce the message about twisting, licking and dunking [Oreo cookies],” Chriss said, who focuses on Kraft’s snacks business. “It’s a tongue and check way to activate with consumers.”
Kraft promoted the sweepstakes on 15 million packages of Oreo and Oreo Double Stuf cookies branded with images of the Manning brothers, and via in-store displays and P-O-P. The company launched a teaser campaign in December with ads and an unbranded Web site at www.whatsthesecondsport.com. Kraft ads featuring the Mannings have received about 1 million views on YouTube, Chriss said.
A separate instant-win game on the site also received more than 500,000 entries. In it, people can enter for a chance to win one of 2,000 DSRL Training Kits, which include a cooler, two glasses and a jersey to help people compete in their own cookie-licking races. The promotion runs through Dec. 1. Or people can obtain DSRL gear via a self-liquidating offer by collecting UPC codes from Oreo packages 17 ounces or larger through Dec. 15.
At home, people can launch their own Double Stuf Race with a competitor, glass of milk and a single Oreo Double Stuf cookie. The person who twists the cookie open, licks off all the crème and shows the cookie to the opponent, dunks it, eats it and drinks the milk wins.
Kraft plans to continue the DSRL campaign with new initiatives unfolding in 2009, Chriss said.
Draftfcb created the advertising campaign and Weber Shandwick handled PR initiatives. Agencies AvenueA Razorfish developed the Web content, Digitas was in charge of the online media presence and MediaVest was the media buyer.