Kraft celebrated the 100th birthday of its Oreo biscuit in Shanghai yesterday by turning the waterfront into a vast Oreo advertisement, painting the landmark Oriental Pearl Tower Oreo blue, plastering skyscrapers with multi-storey neon Oreo adverts and staging fireworks over the Huangpu river.
It was a celebration of one of history’s most successful global brands – and of how that brand has reinvented itself in China, where Oreo is the mainland’s best-selling biscuit.
The way Kraft has transformed this most quintessentially American cookie is a model for how successful multinational brands are approaching the China market, retail analysts say.