Brands preaching disconnect digitally
Oreo India’s latest campaign urging parents to switch off from digital for your loved ones is nothing new but will this help its snacking business
Every evening after 7 PM my mother would stand outside our railway quarter to indicate that our(younger brother and myself) playtime is over. With time my younger brother, smarter than me found ways to avoid my mother’s messages or messengers. Eventually, we would end up getting a good spanking or verbal monologue for being late from our playtime.
Today the problem is
different. The playground is the six-inch device, our best friend across all age groups. The first thing we pick up and the last thing we keep is the mobile phone. Digital has brought the world closer but it has also made us loners.
“An average Indian is spending one-third of his or her waking hours on phone - nearly 1,800 hours a year - and three out of four respondent said if smartphone usage continues at this rate, it is likely to impact their mental or physical health.”
The above finding is part of the joint survey done by Cybermedia Research (CMR) with Chinese smartphone maker Vivo. “The result of smartphone addiction is such that 30 per cent fewer people meet family and loved ones multiple times a month.”
Spending more time in the virtual world isn’t only affecting the youth. Parents today spend more time on different screens than with their families. I was lucky that during my childhood we had just one screen the black and white television that would play only two channels. Today every family member is always on the move with a screen. How do you solve this problem or have a digital detox?
“Parents are aware that their screen time is a problem, as 62 per cent of those surveyed admitted to spending too much time on their cell phone while with their kids.”
This was revealed by The New York Post after it surveyed 2,000 parents of school-aged children (aged 5–18). “83 per cent said they believe it’s important to have time as a family without screens present.”
Disconnect to Connect
While the human race is trying to figure out how not to be controlled by the virtual world, brands are already doing the job. In its latest communication piece, Oreo India is asking parents to log off from their devices and spend time with their loved ones.
The first video, titled ‘Email’ shows a busy dad who has no time for her daughter and he realises the girl’s frustration when she leaves a physical email on his laptop which has an Oreo cookie inside.
According to the brand with the ‘Disconnect to Connect’ campaign, it is trying to encourage consumers to strike a chord of playfulness with their loved ones by snoozing away from the automated world. “Oreo’s brand purpose is to fill the world with more playful moments that bring people together to break through the monotony of adulthood’s seriousness. Through this campaign, we aim to continue this momentum by taking forward our company’s vision to ‘Empower People to Snack Right’”.
The campaign, created by FCB Interface, will also be promoted through digital, outdoor and on-ground promotions. Basically burning media money on different channels.
Stay Playful
Oreo India’s latest campaign is the extension of its global campaign ‘Stay Playful’. During the same time last year, Mondelez brand Oreo launched its global campaign featuring musician Wiz Khalifa and his 5-year-old son Sebastian. The video is no longer active on the brand channel but it is available on YouTube.
According to the MarketingDive, the campaign was launched to connect with millennial parents and to shun gender stereotypes associated with fatherhood.
“The family-focused, self-care messaging and casting of Wiz Khalifa and his son could help the cookie brand build a following among millennial parents, a demographic that packaged foods brands have somewhat struggled to connect with.”
The campaign also released the full-length song via the Oreo x Wiz Khalifa Limited-Edition Music Box, a miniature record player powered by the brand's cookies. “When an Oreo cookie is placed on the turntable, like a record, and the record arm is in place, the song will play. Oreo is giving away a limited number of the music boxes during the Grammys, and fans can visit Oreo.com for a chance to win.”
Unfortunately, the present Indian campaign as of now has no meaningful digital or offline amplification.
Snacking and Oreo business
In 2011 Oreo entered the Indian market with the aim to make the world's favourite biscuit, Oreo, one of India's favourite biscuits. Fast forward 2019, Cadbury’s parent company Mondelez India Foods Private Limited mopped in net profit of Rs 462 crore, a whopping 42% jump in its last year profit numbers.
In a conversation with ET last year, Dirk Van de Put, chairman and chief executive of Mondelez, said India holds an extraordinarily high priority in terms of future growth and is one of the fastest-growing countries for them globally. “I am already thinking about India being a $2 billion business. If you think about snacking around the world in future, 80% of the growth in snacking around the world will come from the developing markets.”
According to the company, it is aiming to take a bigger share of the estimated ₹36,000 crore biscuit market on the back of pushing Oreo and its variants. According to Sudhansu Nagpal, Associate Director - Marketing (Biscuits), Mondelez India, “The company was among the top five players in the cream biscuit segment, which accounted for about 25% of the total organised biscuit market. Till June, it grew faster than industry rates with a 1.8% overall market share.”
However, the company didn’t comment on how the ongoing economic slowdown has impacted the business.
Indians are snacking a lot more during the day and are swapping for meals in India. According to a survey, “The average Indian adult now eats more snacks than meals on a given day, with 7 in 10 saying that they snack more today than they did a year ago.”
Hence snacking is one of the renewed focus areas for Mondelez across markets. But is it a healthy option? The new Indian consumer loves to eat but health is also a priority.
“79% of adults in India appreciate the option of both healthy and indulgent snacks depending on the moment of need,” the study noted.
Mondelez is now offering a low-sugar variant of its popular Dairy Milk chocolate. According to the company, it has started by reducing the sugar by 30 per cent and will roll out more such products.
Digital disconnect campaigns
Every snack should tell a story shared Prashant Parameswaran, CEO and MD Soulfull while sharing his thoughts on consumer snacking habits.
But the story that Oreo India is trying to tell isn’t new. Brands asking consumers to digitally disconnect themselves is a repetitive idea. In 2015 McDonalds India urged the youth to put down their smartphones for a while and obviously enjoy offline moments while having McDonalds Sharing Pack. With #KuchPalOffline the brand wanted to start a movement amongst its customers with a simple act of ‘flip to share’ rather than ‘click to share.
Cinthol tried the same with #AliveIsOffline the idea was to connect to the young that is always glued to one screen or another. The campaign did make us question our own social media habits but the irony was that the brand had to go online to tell its consumers to go offline!
Last year Vivo India tried a similar tactic - armed with the presence of Aamir Khan urged people to switch off their phones and spend more time with their families. In the video we can see the child waiting for his father to get off from hid phone and as a new year wish wants his dad’s phone so that he can switch it off for a while.
Oreo India has changed the medium and from father-son, it is father-daughter engagement. Maybe the brand and the agency can stretch their creative minds a bit.
Today we spend more time with the phone than anyone else. So the insight isn't bad but today’s parent wants healthy options for her kid. Can the brand come up with healthy products? just reducing the sugar percentage for one of the products is lip service. Maybe Oreo should wait for such moments where it brings a revolution in its product offerings before preaching the consumer.
My childhood had no concept of dunking cookies ;) It was milk and Britannia Marie biscuits that ruined my childhood. Bourbon came for the rescue but by then I was a teenager and my taste habits had changed :)