• by Erik Oster , April 16, 2024

For decades, the dropdown “hamburger menu” has provided developers with a way to make websites easier to navigate. The three horizontal bars allowing users to scroll to different sections of a site is commonly called a hamburger for its sandwich-like appearance, but Oreo sees things differently. The Mondelez cookie brand has launched a campaign to get consumers to unseat the “hamburger” association and associate its own brand with the navigation icon -- while providing an incentive to do so.

“The Oreo Menu” introduces the concept with an explanation video, making the argument for renaming the icon. To put its money where its sandwich cookie is, the brand is implementing a digital hack that allows users to enter any tab or category names from the navigation -- across the Internet -- as promotional codes for offers on the cookies at Kroger stores, via a campaign landing page.

Created in partnership with agency partner VML Commerce, the effort builds on Oreo’s “Stay Playful” brand platform, as well its “Oreocodes” initiative that finds the iconic cookie in everyday locations.

VML Global CCO, Commerce Manuel Borde called the activation “a perfect example of our strategy to train people to see Oreos hidden at plain sight,” adding, “We see them everywhere! Our team is constantly on the lookout.”

“The team brought the navigation icon into consideration as a possible Oreo ‘hidden in plain sight,’ and we immediately saw the cookie stack, and knew this was our path to literally position the cookie in every single website, social page, or app that has the icon,” he told Marketing Daily. “But this menu is traditionally known as a hamburger, so another big part of the task is to claim it as our own. And we believe visually, we have a better claim with cookies and cream over buns and patties.”

From there, “The next challenge was to go beyond awareness and into action, without having to partner with website owners,” Borde said, arriving at an approach of using tab names to “playfully hack” them into the promotional codes. An in-house innovation team set up the website, complete with a database of promo codes allowing users to input the tab names and transform them into promotional offers for Oreo cookies.

“The big challenge of course, [was] assuring we capture the millions of potential tab names out there! So we started with a list of common tabs,” he explained, “names like ‘Home,’ ‘Products,’ ‘Contact Us,’ ‘Settings,’ etc. We all know every website probably has an ‘Our Mission’ statement they want to share.”

The campaign also needed to provide a way for people to validate any names not already in the database, for which the team found an easy solution.

“Whenever anyone adds a tab name that is not in the database, they can validate by adding the URL,” Borde said.

An explainer video demonstrates how the “The Oreo Menu” process works, and the campaign includes influencer organic content, digital, and social media initiatives to support the shopper marketing effort.