Oreo "Wonderfilled Anthem" (2013) 1:30 (U.S.A.)

Oreo and The Martin Agency channels its inner Coke for a happiness-inspired animated spot. But instead of buying the world a sugar-laden beverage though, it's giving fairy tale enemies and vampires and sharks a sugar-laden cookie, all set to some saccharine music by Adam Young, aka Owl City.

"Wonder if I gave an Oreo to you." Well, I can answer what would happen if you're curious. I'm 100% certain I would need a toothbrush. Followed by a strict monitoring of my insulin levels. And then I'd mention the fact Coke already tackled the "what if we bought the opposite of ourselves a Coke" idea seven years ago.

Meh whatever. It's still quite beautiful animation despite the sugariness, either way. It's a catchy earworm of a song, too.

I expect this sugary syrup to blow up in the next couple days because Oreo can do no wrong. For now though, (Sunday Night PST) all I can find online are the usual planted Oreo mentions along with Adam Young on tumblr. And you know they're plants because the ad didn't air until tonight during Mad Men and yet there are people positing their love for the spot as early as a couple days ago. With all the requisite hashtags, of course. Because people always post brands as hashtags unprompted.

Consider, for instance, the post from yesterday asking you to watch the video on Youtube. And yet, according to the date on Youtube, it was posted today. Hmm...

C'mon, guys. Shouldn't you be planting the accolades in a less obvious way? It's only a matter of time while we go through all the tumblr tags before we find patient zero. Let's hope it doesn't lead back to Richmond, because that wouldn't be wonderfilled, now would it.

#oreo #adamyoung #pr #bullshit

Client: Oreo
Agency: The Martin Agency
Music: Adam Young
CCO: Joe Alexander
GCD: Jorge Calleja
CD: David Muhlenfeld
CD: Magnus Hierta
Senior Art Director: Brig White
ACD/Design: Chris Peel
Designer: Angie Elko
Designer: Sarah Berkheimer
Illustrator: Martin Allais
Senior Print Producer: Paul Martin
Studio Artist: Whitney McCall
Color Correction: Alice Blue
Animation crew:
Production Company: Studio Animal
Director: Martin Allais
Producer: Maria Soler Chopo
Illustration: Martin Allais
Storyboards: Martin Allais
Animatic: Pere Hernández, Javi Vaquero, Matt Deans
Animator: Pere Hernández, Javi Vaquero, Pablo Navarro, Dani Alcaraz
Tracing and color: Ezequiel Cruz, Macarena Ortega, Eva Puyuelo, Joel Morales
Compositing: Santi Justribó and Martin Allais

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Dabitch's picture

Cute "smile" at the end.

kidsleepy's picture

Have an Oreo and a smile, eh?

Dabitch's picture

If you do that you are smiling with black chunk all over your teeth and THAT'S JUST GROSS, MAN.

kidsleepy's picture

LOLZA

Yabba Dabba's picture

So we know the agency and the musician. But who did the animation? Who directed????

oh-strawberryavalanche's picture

Hmm... you really dont know what you're talking about right? because if you go through all the tumblr tags you will see that we're always and i really mean ALWAYS posting stuff about everything that Adam does.
besides before oreo our word was EGG and with this are you trying to say that we're planted by chickens to promote their eggs?

#oreo #wewereplantedomg #ihadnoidea #arewegettingpaidforthat? #OWLCITY

AnonymousTumblrFangirl's picture

I am on tumblr and you have no idea how hilarious all of us Owl City/Adam Young fans (aka HootOwls) find this right now.
The author seriously underestimates our ability to find anything Owl City related on the internet, even if it is an article about how our favourite musician will be singing a song about a biscuit.
If the author was to create their own tumblr account and follow most of these "plants", what they would find is that we are all just fans of Adam. They can go through the archives of these blogs and find months of us getting equally as excited over pretty much everything else Adam does. In a couple of days this advert and all our jokes surrounding it will be old news and we will have moved onto something else. If the author was to stick around on tumblr, they would learn that we are not plants, just people (mostly teenage girls) creating a community around the music of an artist we all like. They would see more than just posts about Adam, they would see posts about school, parents, british tv shows, food and friends.
The author also doesn't understand how tumblr works - you do tag everything you post about so that others will see it and share it. It's how you gain followers and find others with similar interests - which is the whole point of tumblr, not advertising.

klcarr892's picture

I saw the ad on youtube the day before it aired (so Saturday) and shared it on Twitter/Tumbler too. I, In no way profit from sharing these things. I'm just another fan of Adam/Owl City and even though we may be a little crazy at times, the shares and posts were no fraud/plant.

**Waves to fellow hootowls**

PS, love the commercial and hope others find it catchy so we'll be humming it for years :P

AnonymousHootowl's picture

If the author actually looked at Tumblr hard enough they would've noticed that the commercial's audio was released on Soundcloud early, as well as a private YouTube video link...

kidsleepy's picture

Of course you use hashtags to have other people find you. Including advertising agencies. Perhaps the commentators don't know this but we are busy monitoring your behavior so we can make use of it. Of course the song was released early. Bonus to you! Of course you are a hardcore fan base. You didn't need to tell me that. But whether you like to believe it or not, you are promoting the spot as much as Adam. You may not be bothered by it. I'm not either, I'm just pointing out that this tactic is getting more obvious every day.

Dabitch's picture

Invited to watch a private youtube link, still not grokking that their tumblr page is "influencer" media. ;P

AnonymousTumblrFangirl's picture

From the article it looks like you're implying that we are actually people who work for Oreo or Owl City's teams who created tumblr accounts just to advertise the ad. "Because people always post brands as hashtags unprompted."

And the thought of advertising agencies using our tumblr pages as inspiration for what to use Adam as advertising for next, I like it. It means we get more Owl City. We don't care about what you're selling. We just see more pictures and quotes and music from Adam. I know I'm monitored by advertising agencies as for the past five years I've been advertised things for newborn babies and expectant mothers - I assume because I go on baby name websites regularly... for naming my sims.

(Though maybe a salad company would like to take some inspiration from tumblr user adamyounglaughingalonewithsalad? Because that as a real-life thing would be magical and I might just explode.)

AnonymousTumblrFangirl's picture

Also if the advertising companies are monitoring us on tumblr the least they could do is create an account under "advertisingcompany____" and follow us because a) I'd be more likely to look at what they advertise because I follow back and b) the more followers I have the more I can pretend I'm tumblr famous.

#comingupwithideasforyou #notevengettingpaid #plantlife #atbab

Dabitch's picture

HootOwls / Fans of Adam..... I think you're not quite grasping what's being said here.

... Advertisers would not be making a tumblr called advertising_something and then follow you so that you'd check out what they advertise. Nice try though, AnonymousTumblrFangirl. You'll have to pretend you're tumblr famous some other way. :D

They WILL however message you on your tumblr as you're a fan of Adam, and show you a preview of this ad. Making you do the advertising work for them when you tell everyone how great the song is / whatever you thought about that ad, and then hashtag it like you have #hashtagtourettes.

This thread proves one thing to me, and it's that you can hire talented musicians, animators and artists of all sorts for your ad campaign and you will get a little extra fame for that ad due to the borrowed interest. You may also have your advertising message completely ignored because "fans of X" aren't paying attention to anything but X.

Still, I personally like the animation style. It's cute.

kidsleepy's picture

I like the animation style, too. As far as a concept, not so much. Between Whisper Fight and this one though, Oreo needs to stop being to bi-polar. I guess that might be the problem of having multiple agencies.

As for Adam Young/Owl City fans, the point we're making is you are doing all the work for advertisers who are tapping into your fandom and allowing you to do all the work for them rather than hire a PR company. if you're okay with that, fine.

Me, I'd be a little bit upset if someone was counting on my social media behavior to pimp their ad because they know you're a fan of sugary emo elctro pop. Had they chosen another singer, this thread wouldn't exist.

AnonymousTumblrFangirl's picture

It was always worth a shot, dabitch - I'll have to stick to crying into my cereal because feels and reasons for now. ;)

Kidsleepy, I will say that this comment thread wouldn't exist if you'd made it a little clearer that you thought we were being used unwittingly - the only reason I'm even on this site is because that word "plant" doesn't suggest that to me, it suggests something more like when EA created fake facebook accounts to say how much they loved the new Sim City game on their own statuses to counteract the negative comments.

kidsleepy's picture

Fair enough. You're not a plant. But I can guarantee you there are usually plants standing by, same way as EA. This is advertising. It's one of the tools of the trade. Social media is generally unauthentic from the start. The majority of Buzzfeed top ten lists are nothing more than paid advertising. Likes are bought on youtube twitter fans are bought, and the use of "fans" by a brand on instagram is so bad now, that the FTC has determined paid posts must be labeled as such. And by "paid," that could mean as little as an ad agency buying you a cup of coffee.

Until proven otherwise, I'll substitute "plant," for "tools of advertising."

Dabitch's picture

Speaking of cereal&feels, AnonymousTumblrFangirl, that line reminded me of Ryan Gosling won't eat his cereal and then the Cap'n Crunch response showing that Ryan Gosling will eat that. It's all getting a bit weird in social media, innit?

Manik's picture

I saw the ad on youtube the day before it aired (so Saturday) and shared it on Twitter/Tumbler too. I, In no way profit from sharing these things. I'm just another fan of Adam/Owl City and even though we may be a little crazy at times, the shares and posts were no fraud/plant.

**Waves to fellow hootowls**

PS, love the commercial and hope others find it catchy so we'll be humming it for years :P

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