Oreo Day is being marked on 6 March 2025.

PARTNER CONTENT: For Oreo Day on 6 March, which is being marked by an eye-catching site takeover of TRBusiness.com, we caught  up with Anna Somogyi, Director Category, Customer & Shopper Marketing at Mondelez World Travel Retail (WTR), to learn more about the history of the much-loved cookie brand, the evolution of the biscuit category and what’s to come in travel retail in 2025.

Oreo has a rich history, with the first cookie produced in Manhattan’s Chelsea Market in 1912 with the brand gaining its ‘global passport’ in 1928, exporting to Central and Latin America.

Today, Oreo is available in more than 100 countries, with a whopping 40 billion cookies produced each year.

The brand has garnered a loyal legion of fans around the world, with the playfulness at the heart of its DNA a key part of its universal appeal.

Somogyi fills us in on the details…

Biscuits have always been big business in places such as the UK due to the tea drinking culture, but as an American brand, how has Oreo seen the biscuit category growing and developing globally over the years in terms of market size?

Somogyi: Oreo is different from a tea drinking biscuit – it is not hiding on the side of a teacup. This product is its own playful moment. Its flavour and iconic look have distinguished it from other biscuits, exuding a delicious charm that consumers fall in love with.

Whether it’s the nostalgic appeal for many consumers who associate Oreos with childhood memories or the versatility of the cookie – which is perfect for dunking in milk or used in desserts like milkshakes, cheesecakes, and ice cream – Oreo continues to stand out.

Beyond its classic qualities, memorable advertising campaigns like the ‘Twist, Lick, Dunk’ slogan, have cemented Oreo’s place in pop culture. In addition, Oreos have gained a strong following on social media platforms, with fans sharing recipes, artwork, and photos featuring the iconic cookie. Notably, even celebrity collaborations, such as the Post Malone variety, highlight Oreo’s continued relevance.

Oreo’s main growth engine driver remains the cookie itself, the unique recipe, embossing and taste, and ritual, contribute to its constant success. While we adapt our portfolio to local consumer expectations, by focusing on local occasions and needs, we never lose focus of the essence and purpose of Oreo: the power it has to connect people through playfulness.

Currently, Oreo is sold in more than 100 countries with US, China, India, Brazil and the UK being its top five biggest markets.

As part of its strategy for introducing Oreo into the APAC travel retail market, Mondelez WTR is planning supporting activations at key airport locations, including Changi, Kuala Lumpur International, around June 2025.

Oreo was China’s best-selling cookie in 2006 – how is it faring in the country now?

Currently, China is the second biggest Oreo market, after the US, where Oreo is a leading cookie brand. Expansion with e-commerce and seasonal festive occasions have been the key growth drivers for Oreo in China. In fact, China is our top market when it comes to e-commerce sales. However, Oreo’s success can also be attributed to the implementation of the glo-cal approach: while it remained true to its global core Oreo brand, equity and iconic Oreo cookie, we put local Chinese consumers first and adapted our regional portfolio to delight local consumers.

Plans to introduce Oreo in the APAC travel retail market are well underway. Stock is expected to arrive in April for Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and several other APAC regions. However, Oreo products are already available on travel retail shelves in Australia and Thailand.

While the launch plan is still being finalised, we aim to kick off supporting activations around June at key airport locations, including Changi, Kuala Lumpur International, and more. These activities will focus on increasing product visibility through high-impact displays such as HHPs, wallbays, gondolas, and point-of-sale materials. We will also engage travellers with interactive experiences like sampling, photo booths, and spin-the-wheel games. Additionally, sales will feature gift-with-purchase offers and promotional discounts.

Oreo has earned its place in popular culture with its playful campaigns such as the ‘Twist, Lick, Dunk’ slogan.

How has the rise of snacking culture influenced Oreo in terms of innovations and key messaging?

Oreo is over a century old, and in every country where we have launched it so far, it has created special bonds and become part of families’ lives. This is driven by its distinction; just as Toblerone is never square, it is distinguished, it is triangle. The same applies to Oreo, the brand is iconic. To top it all off, it is a vegan product, so its product credentials are perfectly suited to today’s consumer expectations.

Shoppers are also adding more snacking moments to their day, whether it’s for energy or a moment of upliftment or playfulness – 91% of global consumers have at least one snack per day and this number is increasing*.

We see similar trends in travel retail; more and more travellers are buying confectionery products for self-consumption and sharing. Retailer confectionery shopper data from 2024 tells us that 46% of biscuits purchased in the channel are enjoyed by the buyers themselves, and 18% are shared with others. This boosts the relevance of snackable products that cater to an increased popularity around snacking moments. Oreo is a perfect solution for numerous snacking moments and certainly adds to the brand’s growth potential.

Oreo is particularly popular among Gen Z – how have you been able to keep the brand top of mind for the younger generations in an increasingly crowded category?

The experience of eating an Oreo is part of the brand essence: twist, lick, dunk. We introduce culturally relevant campaigns that speak to this iconic ritual and appeal to a younger audience. Our 2024 Super Bowl ad campaign captured how Oreo is a way of life, helping people make small and big decisions.

It also helps that people across the globe are extremely creative and have naturally created additional ways to experience this brand. From numerous cooking recipes to school experiments, where teachers change the vanilla filling to show the different phases of the moon, Oreo has taken on a life of its own which has been documented online, thanks to social media.

When it comes to content creation, Gen Z play a key role and contribute to the creation of new and innovative ways for Oreo to be enjoyed. They are unlikely to spend hours baking the most precious recipes; instead, they create convenient recipes like Oreo skewers.

The brand itself is an experience, and once younger generations engage with Oreo, they are likely to have positive, playful memories with the brand that are carried into their adulthood. This emotional connection with Oreo is a lasting bond and there is a natural fit within the travel retail environment, where shoppers seek experience and differentiation. Especially as the channel has a captive audience, it gives Oreo the opportunity to bring its playfulness to life in a differentiated way through exclusive packaging and products and campaigns.

Left: Anna Somogyi, Director Category, Customer & Shopper Marketing at Mondelez World Travel Retail (WTR). Right: An Oreo airport activation.

Oreo has made its mark in travel retail with the Oreo Café at HIA among the highlights. What is your strategy for growing the brand in GTR in the over the coming years in line with the evolving demands of travelling consumers and how do you plan to work with retail partners to bring this to life?

Mondelez WTR launched the first Oreo product in travel retail over a decade ago. Since then, this brand has continuously brought so much fun and joy into the stores, through activations like Connect 4 or a giant Oreo mascot welcoming families in store. I also ran a travel retail charity run in an Oreo costume on the Cannes Riviera ahead of TFWA.

The brand performs amazingly when it has the space and opportunity to come to life and the Oreo Café at Hamad International Airport is a fantastic example. Millions of people across the globe love the brand and having a special, never-before-seen experience from the brand is a true treat. Oreo Café is a pioneering concept and shows the trust that the Qatar Duty Free leadership has in Oreo. We are thrilled to see, offline and online, how the café has continued to be met with success, generating significant penetration, turnover and digital exposure where travellers post about their visit on social media.

As Mondelez WTR navigates the evolving demands from travellers, out-of-the-box thinking from our partners is crucial for success. For example, a traveller would not know that their favourite biscuit is available in store when it is hidden out of sight, with limited assortment and without sign posting. As a leader in the travel retail confectionery category, we have an obligation to boost total category sales. In airports where retailers reduce the space given to chocolate and give more to local food or biscuits, we hear from our partners that the incrementality is limited and chocolate suffers. But in airports where the space is crafted in a way where each sub-category is signposted well and brings brands to life, then the whole category and store benefit.

Oreo Café at Hamad International Airport.

Any exciting new developments in the pipeline that you can give us a sneak peek of?

The travelling demographic is shifting and increasingly getting younger. We know that Gen Zs are in love with Oreo, the brand is relevant for them, but they need to see it from a distance. That’s why much of our focus will be on greater collaboration with our partners to unleash this brand all year around with the right signposting to drive growth.

Mondelez WTR also works hard on delivering the right range and right offer, which requires a different thought process from the chocolate category. For example, over the years we launched gift boxes with Oreo, adding premium, more serious elements to the design. We did this because we had data on how the biggest portion of sales for chocolate came from gifting, and we wanted to see if the same would apply to biscuits. What we saw was that a Oreo gift box was relevant for smaller travel groups, while products like the Oreo tin box or the Oreo pouch bag were flying off shelves.

We now have a range which celebrates the brand and its travel retail relevance; the Oreo tin or the Oreo pencil case are both fantastic gift options but in an Oreo way, and the pouch bags are great travel companions of Oreo classic, Oreo gold and Oreo chocolate enrobed. These pouch bags are packed with portion-controlled snack bags, which gives energy for the travel journey. The mini snack box is another key product in our portfolio and is ideal for passengers with waiting times, allowing them to treat themselves with their favourite brands.

The Oreo pipeline holds some exciting news and we will reveal more later in the year but I can already share that we will be bringing more variety which is relevant for key nationalities and demographics and will continue to distinguish Oreo.

*Source: State of Snacking Report 2024

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