Oreo Wants Halloween to Glow, One Cookie Pack at a Time

Halloween is the one time of year when making an ordinary snack slightly ridiculous counts as innovation. Oreo has found another way to join the fun, and this time the trick happens before you even open the package. The cookie giant is giving its familiar chocolate wafers a seasonal makeover, but the real attraction might be something you would normally throw away without a second thought.

The new Spooky Colored Creme cookies sandwich bright orange and green filling between chocolate wafers. They come in individually wrapped Halloween snack packs, with one important twist: the packaging glows in the dark, not the cookies themselves. According to People, Oreo is also bringing back its seasonal Boo cookies, adding another familiar Halloween favourite to the lineup.

It is a small gimmick, but an interesting one. Food companies have spent years dressing up familiar products with seasonal colours, spooky shapes and flavours that sound as though somebody lost a bet in the test kitchen. Now the wrapper gets to join the party. The snack is no longer just something to eat. It becomes a Halloween prop, a conversation starter and one more thing to show off before anyone takes a bite. Apparently, even the packaging has decided it deserves a moment in the spotlight.

Oreo’s parent company, Mondelez, is also getting into the seasonal spirit with pumpkin-flavoured BelVita breakfast biscuits and a mystery-flavour Chips Ahoy! cookie. Halloween is no longer satisfied with candy, it seems. Almost anything in the pantry can join the festivities, provided it gets the right costume and a little marketing magic.

There is something wonderfully silly about a cookie wrapper trying to steal the spotlight from the cookie. Imagine a Halloween party where everyone turns off the lights to admire the packaging while the actual snacks sit forgotten on the table. Somewhere in the darkness, a chocolate wafer is wondering what it has to do to get a little attention.

Oreo has not reinvented the cookie, but it has found another way to make unwrapping part of the entertainment. In October, even the packaging wants to be the life of the party.

Nibbles: Oreo’s Halloween cookies feature orange and green creme, but the glow-in-the-dark trick belongs to the packaging, not the cookies.