Global Oreo Vault

The Global Oreo Vault was a 2020 publicity stunt by Nabisco in which the Oreo cookie recipe was stored in a concrete bunker nearby to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

A pair of Oreo cookies

History

The campaign was inspired by the actual Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

In October 2020, Nabisco announced on social media that it had created a small concrete bunker in Svalbard, Norway, to preserve the Oreo recipe in the event that the 2018 VP1 asteroid impacted the Earth on November 2 or 3, 2020.^[1][2] However, astronomers noted that the asteroid was extremely unlikely to impact the earth.^[3][4] The image of the vault was based on the real life Svalbard Global Seed Vault,^[3][5] and its supposed coordinates (78°08'58.1"N, 16°01'59.7"E; satellite imagery from early 2021 shows no evidence of ground disturbance at the site - an actual structure is highly unlikely) were placed near the seed vault.^[6] The vault supposedly contained Oreos wrapped in Mylar, powdered milk and the recipe for Oreo cookies.^[7] The campaign was inspired by a tweet posted on October 3, 2020.^[8][9] The company uploaded a series of scripted parody videos about the vault to YouTube,^[10] and released social media content which built up to a mockumentary about the vault's creation.^[8][11] The stunt was created by the Oreo marketing team and advertising agencies 360i and The Community.^[8]

Awards

The campaign was nominated for and received several awards for advertisements and online content. It was nominated for a 2020 Clio Award,^[12] and 2021 Webby Award,^[13] and won a 2021 Muse Award,^[14] Shorty Award,^[15] and Cresta Award.^[16] The campaign also won Adweek's Reader's Choice bracket for marketing events of the year.^[8]