Bring back 2011

Oreo is a well-established global brand with a legacy of over 100 years. In a highly competitive biscuits market, Oreo’s goal was to reinstate the brand’s promise and strengthen its play by inspiring playful moments and bring people together.
There was no better occasion than to launch the marketing campaign than during the cricket World Cup. Cricket is hugely popular in India, especially with Oreo’s target audience of families with children, who love watching the games together.
However, with many brands from around the world partnering with teams and players, the task was to make Oreo stand out, without incurring high sponsorship costs.

Indians are very superstitious, and when it comes to cricket, even more so. The superstitious beliefs held by cricket fans around repeating actions during a match, such as wearing a particular jersey or sitting in a precise location repeatedly during a game, thinking this will help India win the match, served as the foundation for our campaign idea.

History knows that the last time India won the Cricket World Cup was in 2011 and during the same year, Oreo was also launched in India. We were facing the same challenge this year too, launching a limited-edition cookie pack when India was playing the World Cup in 2022! Coincidence? No way!

And this is exactly how we strategized to launch our cricket special edition cookie, by relaunching Oreo in India AGAIN in the belief that history would repeat itself and India would win the World Cup AGAIN.

We used the huge fandom of the 2011 captain of the Indian Cricket Team, MS Dhoni, who also happens to be Oreo’s brand ambassador. Our campaign began with a post from Dhoni’s handle, about going live on YouTube, without any brand mention. This created curiosity among consumers and news publications with numerous speculations.

On Youtube Live, Dhoni announced the relaunch of Oreo, revealing the special connection between Oreo and the World Cup. In 2011, Oreo launched in India, the same year India won the World Cup. The idea was to encourage the audience to join MS Dhoni’s pledge to ‘Bring Back 2011’ and secure another win for India.

Oreo encouraged everyone to get involved and share their 2011 routine. Cricketers who played the 2011 tournament recreated their old pre-match routines, getting the same haircuts, watching the same films and listening to the same music they did over 10 years ago.

We collaborated with Times of India to recreate their 2011 front page celebrating the win, restaurants relaunched their 2011 menus, a fan even replicated his 2011 tattoo! all in the name of supporting Team India.​​​​​​​​​​​