Only a few spots left to join us for AI Marketing Strategies

Join us Sept. 24 in NYC to connect with execs from Digitas, Claire's, Marriott, Havas and others

SECURE YOUR SEAT

Who Else Wants Credit for the Oreo Tweet?

Success has many fathers, and in the ad industry it has even more.

Anytime there’s a successful campaign, pretty much everyone even tangentially related to it tries to get in on the credits. (There are probably 200 people who claim involvement in Subservient Chicken and Shave Everywhere.) That way the piece can go in their book, helping them land a new job, make more money, etc. There’s little way of actually checking on this, other than talking to those involved in the efforts.

Look no further than the now-famous Oreo Super Bowl blackout tweet. This was, after all, a tweet with seven words and a photo. As we’ve pointed out, it apparently took 13 people to accomplish this feat. Recognition for the full team is a solid move in awards season. But it doesn’t stop there.

Now, Fast Company is out with its 100 Most Creative People list, a grab bag of folks of all sorts that, in the words of Fast Company editor David Lidsky, are “doing cool shit.” It’s a broad criteria. Two agency creatives, Jill Appelbaum and Megan Sheehan, got on the list at No. 7, ranking above Ai Weiwei, in recognition of their work on Oreo at Draft FCB. The blurb gives the duo oblique credit for the Super Bowl tweet, even though they’d stopped working on the business by then. They’d done the creative for Oreo’s yearlong campaign that involved putting photoshopped images up on Facebook. The thinking goes that that effort “transformed” Oreo into a real-time brand, leading to the Super Bowl tweet.

As one agency exec remarked, “At this point, Orly Taitz might take credit.”

More in Marketing

Marketers are using AI search concerns to argue for higher media budgets

Brands with long consideration journeys, like insurance and cars, are paying close attention to shifting search behaviors. They’re using that concern to make their case for more media dollars.

In Graphic Detail: Inside the scramble to measure a brand’s AI visibility

Marketers are catching on that AI doesn’t rank their brands, it decides whether it gets brought up at all. That shift is already reshaping how the industry works.

Electronic Arts is bundling its games to make a bigger pitch to advertisers

The gaming company is betting that giving brands access to multiple franchises in one buy will help it win bigger advertising budgets.