Why Aping Oreo’s Super Bowl Moment Is A Pointless Risk [3min read]

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There’s a lot of hub-bub over ‘target moments’, or ‘moment advertising’. But how much should you worry about so-called real time marketing? Is it worth the risk to your reputation and budget? You’re no doubt under a lot of pressure to spool up a team to react to these moments others create. You should re-consider.

There’s good reason for you to be feeling this pressure. The reactive, real-time moments, both the wins and losses, are the ones that I seem to hear about most. Here’s a byte that had the audience tittering at a recent conference:

“Advertisers aren’t looking at target markets anymore. They’re looking at target moments.”

The discussion continued to talk about those real-time, opportunistic moments like when the lights went off during the Super Bowl and Oreo tweeted this:

Now forget the story for a moment and focus on the image and copy. What does it make you feel?

If you know the story behind it (and that’s a bigger “if” than you think), you may feel envy or admiration. After all, it was a herculean effort to make this happen with such apparent ease.

This was the Addy of real-time moments.

Moments You Create Can Offer Far More Value

Here’s another conquest from the Oreo team:

How does this one make you feel? For me, I nearly teared up with pride that a major consumer brand would lead with its chin, hands-on-hips, and shout out the message of equality. They voiced a very strong opinion, that their research told them would work, rather than reacting to a real-time moment with a bit of safe copy.

“It made me feel great. I bought some Oreos.”

From a consumer’s point of view, the Gay Pride ad made me buy Oreos. Dunk in the Dark? It excited marketers.

Moments You Create are Less Risky

What’s the win-lose ratio for reactive moments? Does it matter?

The point of view of the brand manager can win out over creative. Why would she risk her brand’s reputation to win the praise of the advertising media?

Reacting to other people’s moments is the desperate action of a cornered cat. It’s always playing offense — and rarely an opportunity for anything but an innocuous response. It’s why the Oreo copy is so milquetoast.

Except in this case, you’ve not been backed into a corner. You don’t need to dedicate the people or money to react to someone else’s moment. It’s a phantom crisis.

Create your own moment. Let others react.