Kraft reformed Oreo cookies to make them more successful in China. They made the cookies less sweet to suit Chinese tastes, sold them in smaller, cheaper packages, and marketed them with a "dunking" theme. This involved training student brand ambassadors to educate consumers about dipping cookies in milk. Kraft also introduced a Chinese-style Oreo wafer stick that surpassed regular Oreos in sales. These reforms helped Oreo become the best-selling biscuit in China.

1. Databases selected: Multiple databases...
Full Text (1223 words)
Kraft Reformulates Oreo, Scores in China
Julie Jargon. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York,
N.Y.: May 1, 2008. pg. B.1
Abstract (Summary)
Kraft, the world's second largest food company by revenue,
reported a 13% drop in first-quarter net income Wednesday
because of high commodity costs and increased spending on
product research and marketing. Television commercials
showed kids twisting apart Oreo cookies, licking the cream
center and dipping the chocolate cookie halves into glasses of
milk.
(c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Reproduced with
permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction or
distribution
is prohibited without permission.
Unlike its iconic American counterpart, the Oreo sold in China
is frequently long, thin, four-layered and coated in chocolate.
But
both kinds of cookies have one important thing in common:
They are now best sellers.
The Oreo has long been the top-selling cookie in the U.S.
market. But Kraft Foods Inc. had to reinvent the Oreo to make it
sell
well in the world's most populous nation. While Chinese Oreo

2. sales represent a tiny fraction of Kraft's $37.2 billion in annual
revenue, the cookie's journey in China exemplifies the kind of
entrepreneurial transformation that Chief Executive Irene
Rosenfeld is trying to spread throughout the food giant.
Kraft, the world's second largest food company by revenue,
reported a 13% drop in first-quarter net income Wednesday
because of high commodity costs and increased spending on
product research and marketing. Its international business,
which now represents 40% of Kraft's revenue thanks to the
company's recent acquisition of Groupe Danone's biscuits
business, was a bright spot in the quarter, aided by the weak
dollar. Kraft's profit in the European Union rose 48%, excluding
special charges, and its profit in developing markets rose 57%.
To try to increase growth at the company, Ms. Rosenfeld has
been putting more power in the hands of Kraft's various
business units around the globe, telling employees that
decisions about Kraft products shouldn't all be made by people
at the
Northfield, Ill., headquarters.
To take advantage of the European preference for dark
chocolate, Kraft is introducing dark chocolate in Germany under
its
Milka brand. Research in Russia showed that consumers there
like premium instant coffee, so Kraft is positioning its Carte
Noire freeze-dried coffee as upscale by placing it at film
festivals, fashion shows and operas. And in the Philippines,
where
iced tea is popular, Kraft last year launched iced-tea-flavored
Tang. Ms. Rosenfeld has also been encouraging marketers to
"reframe" product categories, no longer thinking, for example,
that an Oreo has to be a round sandwich cookie.
Oreos were first introduced in 1912 in the U.S., but it wasn't

3. until 1996 that Kraft introduced Oreos to Chinese consumers.
Nine years later, a makeover began. Shawn Warren, a 37-year-
old Kraft veteran who had spent many years marketing the
company's cookies and crackers around the world, arrived in
Asia in 2005 and noticed that Oreo's China sales had been flat
for the previous five years.
Back then, Kraft was selling the U.S. version of Oreos in China.
Albert Einstein's definition of insanity -- doing the same thing
repeatedly and expecting different results -- "characterized what
we were doing," says Mr. Warren, vice president of marketing
for Kraft Foods International.
The Chinese weren't big cookie eaters. The market for biscuits
in fiscal 2007 was just $1.3 billion, compared with $3.5 billion
in the U.S. at food retailers excluding Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Mr. Warren assigned his team to a lengthy research project that
yielded some interesting findings. For one thing, Kraft learned
that traditional Oreos were too sweet for Chinese tastes. Also,
the packages of 14 Oreos priced at 72 cents were too
expensive.
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The company developed 20 prototypes of reduced-sugar Oreos
and tested them with Chinese consumers before arriving at a
formula that tasted right. Kraft also introduced packages
containing fewer Oreos for just 29 cents.

4. Some Chinese consumers still find the Oreos too sweet. One 30-
year- old consumer who was shopping for groceries in the
eastern part of Beijing recently, said that he likes the cookie but
that "many of my friends think I am a bit weird to stick to Oreo
cookies, as most of them think it too sweet to be accepted."
Mr. Warren also noticed China's growing thirst for milk, which
Kraft wasn't fully exploiting. In fact, increased milk demand in
China and other developing markets -- as well as tighter
supplies resulting from recent droughts in milk-producing
countries
and a reduction of subsidies for European dairy farmers -- has
pushed up milk prices around the world. That has put pressure
on food manufacturers like Kraft, whose biggest business is
cheese, but it has also created opportunity.
In China, Kraft began a grassroots marketing campaign to
educate Chinese consumers about the American tradition of
pairing
milk with cookies. The company created an Oreo apprentice
program at 30 Chinese universities that drew 6,000 student
applications.
Three hundred of the applicants were trained to become Oreo
brand ambassadors. Some of the students rode around Beijing
on bicycles outfitted with wheel covers resembling Oreos and
handed out cookies to more than 300,000 consumers. Others
held Oreo-themed basketball games to reinforce the idea of
dunking cookies in milk. Television commercials showed kids
twisting apart Oreo cookies, licking the cream center and
dipping the chocolate cookie halves into glasses of milk.
Ms. Rosenfeld calls the bicycle campaign "a stroke of genius
that only could have come from local managers. The more
opportunity our local managers have to deal with local
conditions will be a source of competitive advantage for us."

5. Still, Kraft realized it needed to do more than just tweak its
recipe to capture a bigger share of the Chinese biscuit market.
China's cookie-wafer segment was growing faster than
traditional biscuit-like cookies, and Kraft was trailing rival
Nestle SA, the
world's largest food company by revenue, which had introduced
chocolate-covered wafers there in 1998.
So in China in 2006 Kraft remade the Oreo itself, introducing
for the first time an Oreo that looked almost nothing like the
original. The new Chinese Oreo consisted of four layers of
crispy wafer filled with vanilla and chocolate cream, coated in
chocolate. Kraft developed a proprietary handling process to
ensure that the chocolate product could be shipped across the
country, withstanding the cold climate in the north and the hot,
humid weather in the south, yet still be ready to melt in the
mouth.
Tailoring Western brands to Eastern tastes isn't a new idea, but
it has proved more difficult for some companies than others.
When Campbell Soup Co. tried to enter China in the early
1990s, it sold the same ready-to-eat soups found in American
grocery stores and they flopped. Now, Campbell is trying to
crack the Chinese soup market again with flavorful broths it
hopes
will fit with the Chinese tradition of making soup from scratch.
Yum Brands Inc. has had success in China with its KFC fried-
chicken chain by offering menu items familiar to Chinese
consumers, such as congee, or rice porridge, and the Dragon
Twister, a sandwich wrap filled with chicken, Peking duck
sauce, cucumbers and scallions. Some of Nestle's snack wafers
in China come in such flavors as sesame and red bean.
Kraft's Oreo efforts have paid off. In 2006, Oreo wafer sticks

6. became the best-selling biscuit in China, outpacing
HaoChiDian,
a biscuit brand made by the Chinese company Dali. The new
Oreos are also outselling traditional round Oreos in China, and
Kraft has begun selling the wafers elsewhere in Asia, as well as
in Australia and Canada. Kraft has also introduced wafer rolls,
a tube-shaped wafer lined with cream, in China. The hollow
cookie can be used as a straw through which to drink milk.
Over the past two years, Kraft has doubled its Oreo revenue in
China, and with the help of those sales, that revenue topped $1
billion world-wide for the first time last year.
---
Sue Feng contributed to this article
Indexing (document details)
Subjects: Marketing, Product management, Product
development, Cookies
Classification Codes 9180, 8610, 5400
Locations: China
Companies: Kraft Foods Inc (NAICS: 311223, 311513, 311520,
311612, 311919, 311920 )
Author(s): Julie Jargon
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7. Document types: News
Publication title: Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New
York, N.Y.: May 1, 2008. pg. B.1
Source type: Newspaper
ISSN: 00999660
ProQuest document ID: 1470961691
Text Word Count 1223
Document URL:
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3&cl ientId=20175&RQT=309&
VName=PQD
Copyright © 2010 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved.
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Fact Sheet:
OREO 100th BIRTHDAY
A Global Taste of the World’s Favorite Cookie

8. Magic happened on March 6, 1912 when two decoratively
embossed chocolate-flavored wafers met up
with a rich crème filling. Oreo cookies were born! In 2012,
Oreo celebrates its 100th birthday and invites
the world to join in the party and raise a celebratory glass … of
milk, that is!
Enjoyed in more than 100 countries, today the Oreo brand is the
world‟s top selling cookie. In markets
around the world, Oreo comes in surprising local flavors, like
blueberry and green tea ice cream, and fun
shapes and forms, like Oreo Minis and Triple Double Oreo. But
no matter where in the world you find
Oreo, one thing remains right at the heart of milk‟s favorite
cookie: the iconic “twist, lick, dunk” ritual that
brings people together like no other biscuit can!
Oreo Fun Facts:
-- the same year the South Pole was
discovered,
and the Titanic sank.
where

9. Oreo was originally packaged in bulk tins and sold by weight.
Back
then, grocers paid USD $0.30 cents/lb for Oreo.
– Oreo Way –
formerly known as West 15th Street between 9th & 10 Avenues
in
New York City where the first Oreo cookie was made at the
original
Nabisco bakery.
st Oreo cookie was embossed with a thin
wreath on the outer edge, with the Oreo
name on the plain surface in the middle.
-
selling cookie brand of the 21st century,
with $1.5 billion in global annual revenues. Kraft Foods is the
proud custodian of Oreo, and Oreo is
one of the company‟s 12 “billion-dollar” brands.
countries.
China, Venezuela, Canada, Indonesia,
Mexico, Spain, Central America and the Caribbean, UK and

10. Argentina.
France (recently launched),
Australia/New Zealand, Chile, China, Indonesia,
Malaysia/Singapore, Taiwan, Morocco, Mexico and
Hong Kong.
apart their cookies before eating, with
women twisting them open more often than men.
scuit baker.
And Oreo is made at 21 bakeries
around the world.
million Oreo lovers around the globe,
representing 200+ countries and dozens of different languages.
Oreo ranks among the top five
brand Facebook pages in the world!
Examples of Flavors and Forms Around the World
United States:
- Triple Double Oreo
- Oreo Fudge Cremes: Peanut Butter and Golden

11. - Double Stuf Oreo Heads or Tails
China:
ream: Oreo cookie with green tea
ice cream flavor crème with a cooling sensation that
simulates ice cream.
that‟s popular in China
-Fruit in Orange & Mango and Raspberry
& Blueberry crème.
Indonesia:

12. Argentina:
or Tres”) cookie, introduced in
2010.
Inspiration for the US TRIPLE DOUBLE OREO cookie, the
OREO
x3 features three layers of cookie, and two layers of creme.
complementary “half and half” flavors. Two varieties:
Strawberry and vanilla; banana and dulce de leche.
in
chocolate in the form of a traditional Argentine snack cake.
Mexico:
different chocolates in the same
Oreo … one per each cookie and a third
in the crème

13. Iconic Oreo Advertising Slogans through the Years
– Oh!, Oh! Oreo!
– For the Kid in All of Us
– America‟s Best Loved Cookie
– The One and Only
– Who‟s The Kid with the Oreo Cookie?
– Oreo, The Original Twister
– Milk‟s Favorite Cookie
History of Oreo … 100 years and counting!
1912 – Oreo is introduced, with the first Oreo rolling off the
line at the
Chelsea Market bakery in Manhattan.
1913 – Oreo cookie is registered as a Nabisco trademark.

14. 1921 – The name “Oreo Biscuit” is changed to “Oreo
Sandwich.”
1923 – First advertisement showing the “twist” appears on
trolley cars. Oreo cookies now available in a self-service
fiberboard package.
1928 –Oreo is exported to several Spanish-speaking
countries in Central and Latin America.
1937 – The name “Oreo Sandwich” is changed to “Oreo
Crème Sandwich.”
1949 – Oreo introduced in Canada.
1952 – Cookie design modified to include
the Nabisco Biscuit Company‟s colophon
emblem.
1965 – Oreo cookies packaging changes to
a one-pound cardboard carton that contains three waxed-paper
wrapped

15. “stack packs” (but are still available in the one-pound, 11-ounce
and 6 ½-
ounce cellophane bags, as well as single-serve packets).
Late 1960s – Oreo launched in Venezuela.
1974 –Oreo Double Stuf Chocolate Sandwich cookies
introduced in the U.S.
1983 –Oreo cookies are supplied to approved ice cream
manufacturers for use in
products marketed under the trade name of Oreo brand “Cookies
„N Cream Ice Cream.”
Complete line of single-serve items designed to satisfy
consumer snacking needs
introduced in U.S.
1985 – Oreo Mint Crème cookies introduced in U.S. for limited
time. Oreo Double Stuf
cookies introduced in Canada.
1986 – Oreo Ice Cream introduced in Canada.
1987 – Oreo celebrates its 75th birthday. Oreo Big Stuf cookies

16. introduced for a limited time in
retail market. Fudge Covered Oreo Sandwich cookies introduced
in U.S.
1988 – Oreo Baking Crumbs (for recipes) introduced in Canada.
1989 – “Father and Son” TV commercial marks the launch of
the
“Moments” campaign.
1990 – Oreo Summer Fun Pack introduced in Canada and sells
over
900,000 packages in just 3 weeks. White Fudge Covered Oreo
cookies introduced as holiday seasonal product in U.S.
1991 –Oreo cookies available with orange colored filling for
Halloween in U.S. Winter White Oreo (White
Fudge Covered Oreo Cookies) introduced in Canada.
1992 – Mini Oreo cookies available nationwide in U.S. and first
introduced in Canada.

17. 1993 – Oreo cookies now sold in 30 countries worldwide. Mini
Oreo cookies with red filling introduced for
holiday season in U.S. Oreo Cookie Pie Crust introduced in
U.S.
1994 – Reduced Fat Oreo cookies introduced in U.S. Oreo
launches in Brazil and Iberia.
1995 – Oreo Chocolate Sandwich cookies introduced in
Argentina. Holiday Oreo cookies with red crème
filling produced for Christmas holiday season in U.S. Oreo
launches in Hong Kong.
1996 – Oreo cookies introduced in China.
1998 – Oreo Global Moments Campaign launch.
1999 – In a survey conducted to mark the turn of the century,
86% of
Americans chose Oreo cookies when asked which items they
would like to see
continued in the next century. Oreo ranked second behind
“newspapers”.
(source: Yankelovich Partners, Inc.)

18. 2000 – Oreo cookies are enjoyed by 9 out of 10 households in
the US. Mini Oreo cookies in convenient
on-the-go packs introduced.
2001 – Chocolate Crème Oreo cookies and Chocolate Crème
Mini Oreo cookies introduced in U.S. Oreo
Fudge Covered Mint Sandwich cookies introduced in U.S.
2002 – Double Delight Oreo cookies introduced in U.S. in
Peanut Butter and
Chocolate Crème, Mint and Crème and Coffee and Crème.
2003 – Oreo puts the chocolate on the inside and two golden
wafers on the outside
with the launch of “Uh-Oh!”. This product was originally
intended to be an “in and
out” product but it was so popular that the brand decided to
keep it.
2004 – Golden Oreo launched. Oreo Brownies introduced in
Canada as foodservice
dessert. Football Oreo cookies introduced as “in and out”
product in U.S. Reduced Fat
Oreo cookies are reformulated to have zero grams of trans fat

19. per serving.
2005 – First-ever “Oreo and Milk” jingle contest.
2006 – Oreo becomes China‟s #1- selling biscuit.
2007 – Oreo launched in Greece, Denmark, Norway and
Sweden. Oreo
Cakesters launched in U.S. Snack „n Seal packaging introduced
in the U.S.
2008 – Oreo launched in UK, Netherlands and Italy. Double
Stuf Racing League (DSRL) launched in U.S.
First-ever global Oreo campaign launches, Global Moments.
Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs Oreo Mini
Cakesters introduced in U.S. Oreo Fudgees introduced as a
limited edition.
2009 – Oreo Fun Stix and Golden Double Stuf launched. Oreo
biscuits are the subject of the world‟s
largest blind taste test with 1,471 people gathering in Madrid,
Spain.
2010 – Oreo launched in Ukraine.

20. 2011 – Oreo introduced in Poland, Germany and India.