- In 1974, the Double Stuf Oreos debuted.
Did you read Nabisco and Keebler Fun Facts; Where it all Began: Part One? Because this is part two.
Nabisco is number one with the Oreo cookie and number two with the Chips Ahoy cookie in sales. Many chocolate chip cookies from companies like Mrs. Fields, Famous Amos and Entenmanns started to come out and were cutting into Nabisco’s market share.
So, they decided to double down on the cookie that put them on the map. In
1974, the Double Stuf Oreos debuted.
Nabisco fired back with their own chewy cookies when the Chewy Chips Ahoy in 1983.
In 1984, Nabisco released an “Oreo” ten times the size of regular Oreos. They were not dunkable. It wasn’t too big to fail and fail it did.
In 1990, new trends in health and nutrition were emerging and Nabisco was cooking up something even bigger. The food pyramid came out, and told you that “fat makes you fat.” Diet culture said it’s, “Not the amount of calories or how much sugar you’re eating that’s the problem. It’s fat. And with this, the new craze for low-fat diet food emerged.
Snackwells came out at the perfect time. The new “healthy” treat had
flavors like Devils Food and Vanilla Cream. The product did so well that it sold $500 million dollars in their first three years, topping both the cookie and cracker markets.
People loved these “good for you” cookies. In fact, they loved them so much and they were so popular that grocers couldn’t keep them on the shelves.
If Snackwells had been their own company, they would have been the third most popular company in the world at the time. But, the food pyramid was overthrown and the Snackwells cookie went down with it.
In 1996, Keebler bought the sunshine company and released the elves. They appealed to kids and in response, Nabisco increased their marketing budget by 30%.
Nabisco released the Chips Ahoy mascot, the cookie guys with the eyes
and sassy attitudes. They also pulled another product out of the shadows, Wheat Thins.
Nabisco targeted millennials and harnessed the power of social media. They said those who post to Twitter and mention Wheat Thins will get a free delivery from their ‘Crunch is Calling’ van.
The campaign explodes and Wheat Thins see seven straight months of growth. By 2012, Nabisco celebrates as Oreo sales top $2 billion worldwide and their cookie turns 100 years old.
With this, the birthday cake Oreo Birthday was released as the first
special limited edition cookie. More than 60 varieties came out in the years that followed including watermelon, bubble gum, ultimate chocolate, chocolate hazelnut, red velvet, mint, peanut butter, and caramel coconut. Even flavors like Game of Thrones and Lady Gaga came out, whatever those even are?
Special Oreo sales up by more than 12% and interestingly, each time a new flavor is released, original Oreo sales spike about 22%. (The thought is that people want to try a new flavor, but because they sit together in the store, they go ahead and grab a pack of the original as well. )
The Oreo cookie is still the number one selling cookie today, selling 34 billion cookies a year around the globe. Soft baked-chocolate chip cookies are predicted to be a billion dollar a year industry in spending.
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