We’ve all enjoyed a delicious snack before, in front of YouTube, at our desks, in bed.

Mondelēz International – a US-based confectionery, food and beverage company makes Oreo Cookies, one of the top preferred snacks in the MENA region. Which is why Oreo was surprised to discover that even though 90% of people in Saudi Arabia were aware of what Oreo cookies were, only 47% of all households were buying them.

Oreo wanted to know why. They discovered that past creative campaigns and brand messages were not connecting with the full potential audience with kids being the primary drivers behind Oreo consumption.

To get more adults snacking on Oreo cookies too, the brand launched its Oreo People campaign, showcased mainly on YouTube.

Partnering with Google, the brand used YouTube insights, search signals and viewership habits to get a deeper understanding of the region’s top content interests. Based on these, Oreo developed fun and personalized creatives in a highly efficient way. Using just one video background, a handful of actors and simple but creative props, Oreo kept its cost considerably lower than other campaigns spending less than USD40,000 for 48 dynamic videos.

Oreo then served these videos to users searching for something else entirely deliberately mismatching YouTube searches to grab people's attention. For example, when a music fan searched for Arabic music on YouTube they’d get served an Oreo People video ad featuring a rapper. Why would Oreo show a rapper to a user clearly looking for Arabic music? Because they all love Oreo; they’re all Oreo People.

The results? They were impressive. Thanks to its campaign, the value share reached an all-time high, with an uplift of 1.2 percentage points. Oreo’s sales saw an uplift too, with year-to-date sales value increasing by 30% compared to other segments. The brand also saw an almost 100% uplift in brand awareness, with a 47% increase in household penetration in Saudi Arabia. Oreo saw view-through-rate increase 49% against an average of 25% with ad recall climbing by more than 10%

So, what can we take away from the Oreo People campaign? When viewers see creative content that feels personally relevant to them, results and engagement both improve. Now that’s something worth celebrating!