Oreo wins award for a stupid tweet, Advertiser quits his job in protest and launches own firm

The world of professional advertising and marketing can be really weird.

I didn’t watch the SuperBowl this year. Or any other year, for that matter. Apparently at some point during “the big game,” there was a power outage. Some advertising folks working on behalf of Oreo (the cookie) took advantage of the opportunity and tweeted about how you can still dunk an Oreo in the dark. They were essentially taking a page from the David Meerman Scott playbook (see Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage).

And it worked. Not only did Oreo’s brand receive massive attention, but the advertisers won a very desirable award at the Cannes Lion festival. Andrew Teman, an advertiser himself, now had to live up to a promise he published on his blog:

I promised that if the Oreo tweet won a Cannes Lion, I’d quit advertising. And now I’m going to do that. Kind of.

I’m leaving my day job, and heading off to create my own agency (with my friend and now partner Thomas), and it’s going to be called Heart…

We want to work faster, smarter, and lighter. We want to work at pace with other passionate people. We want to make smart things that make our partners richer and famous-er. We want to work in the name of work that works.

via Andrew Teman