The Design Method that Perfectly Describes Oreo’s Strategy

“On many campuses in the United States it’s club rush – a time when students learn about and decide if they want to join a club. I overheard two of my children talking about the Oreo club at their high school. That’s odd, I thought. “What does the Oreo club do?” I asked. “They sit around and discuss Oreos.” I recommended that they tell the club to have me as a guest speaker because I know a lot about Oreos. But, since I know they won’t call me, I’ll just share my Oreo insights here. Or, to be more specific, I’ll describe the design method that perfectly describes Nabisco’s strategy with the Oreo brand.”

The method is called SCAMPER. It’s an acronym for 7 ways to change a product or a concept to create derivatives (yes John, everything is a derivative). Once you know about SCAMPER you’ll see it in various product lines. For me, however, SCAMPER is more meaningful when I consider it as a method to seed concept generation. SCAMPER stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/magnify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, and Rearrange/reverse. How can SCAMPER be used? In a concept generation setting, if things are stalling out, the brainstorming leader can pick an already generated concept and ask the team to substitute a different material or process, modify/magnify the form of the product, or ask the team to eliminate a part of a concept to create a new concept. That’s really all it is. As simple as it is, it can be an effective way to come up with new ideas.

 So, how does SCAMPER apply to a real product? That’s where we need to go back to the Oreo. The classic original Oreo (the one you are imagining in your head) is approaching its 120th anniversary. With such a long history, it is relatively easy to look back and observe the product derivatives that have emerged and how they line up pretty much perfectly with the SCAMPER method.

 Here we go (all of the following is or has at one point been purchasable as an Oreo product):

Substitute

Substitute peanut butter for the cream filling and you have Peanut Butter Oreo. Oreo has done this at least 95 times, each time getting a new product in the Oreo product family.

 Combine

Combine Oreos with ice cream and you have Oreo-Cookies-and-Cream. Or cover the original Oreo in chocolate and you have the Oreo Fudge Cremes.

 Adapt

Adapt the traditional Oreo by crushing it (cookie and crème) into a mass that is formed into a pie crust and you have Oreo Pie Crust.

 Modify/Magnify

Oreo Mini. Enough said. So many companies have done this, especially with food. Ritz minis, M&M minis, King Size Snickers, Starburst minis, Reese’s Pieces…

 Put to other uses

Assemble the crème filling between Oreo’s traditional chocolate cookie on one side and its vanilla cookie on the other, and call it Oreo Heads or Tails. This one is a bit of stretch, but the principle here is that Nabisco used what it already had (no tooling needed) to create a new product, thus putting what it already had to other uses.

 Eliminate

Toss out the crème filling and mold the cookie in the shape of a fruit loop and you have Oreo O’s – another breakfast cereal that shouldn’t exist!

 Rearrange

Rearrange the flavors by making the cookie vanilla flavored and the crème chocolate flavored and you have Golden Chocolate Crème Oreos.

There you have it; SCAMPER as demonstrated with OREOs. Eat your heart out Highschool Oreo Club. I would have given this talk in person, if you had invited me.