← Bethany Mayes OREO · Concept

Back to School

Biology
101.

The first lesson of the year is hiding in your snack. Twist it, pull it apart, and watch one become two.

Twist.Pull apart.Learn.
Three Oreo cookies with the cream filling shaped into the stages of cell division — one blob, a pinch, then two — captioned 'Biology 101.'

The big idea

The ad becomes the first lesson.

Campaign

A self-initiated seasonal OOH ad that positions Oreo top of mind as the go-to snack as kids return to school.

Back-to-school is snacking’s most predictable moment, ads reach for the same visual cues; backpacks, lunchboxes, a kid grinning over a packed lunch. I wanted to put Oreo somewhere more ownable, so I built the idea around what school is really about, learning, the ad becomes the first lesson.

The ritual reframed

Oreo owns a ritual everyone already knows; you twist, you pull apart, and one becomes two. The idea was sitting inside the biscuit the whole time: one blob, the pinch, then two, the creme pulled apart into the different stages of mitosis.

The thing everyone already does to
an Oreo, reframed as cell division.

01

Twist

The move you’ve made a thousand times, the oreo twists open.

02

Pull apart

The creme pulls, then pinches to split down the middle.

03

One becomes two

Mitosis, in one bite, It’s not explained, you just get there.

The story

A playful moment of discovery.

The Biology 101. concept brought to life as a Back-to-School Oreo aisle takeover in a supermarket — a towering blue column with the three mitosis cookies, a parent and child shopping past it.
Why it works

The ad works through restraint, it respects the viewer by leaving the final connection for them to make.

At first, the ad reads as a beautifully executed minimal Oreo product poster, then the words Biology 101. sends the eye back to the creme sequence. A moment later, the idea lands, it is cell division, no explanation needed, the recognition is the reward and this what makes the ad memorable, keeping Oreo front of mind. The viewer is not being told the answer; they are completing it themselves. By leaving a deliberate gap, the ad becomes more satisfying, more engaging, and more likely to stick, turning a simple snack into a playful moment of discovery.

The build

Art directing the creme as cell division.

This was less a test of the tools than of how hard they could be pushed. The final image looks effortless, but it landed after dozens of attempts. Art directing the creme to read as three exact stages of division, recognisable as biology, and still look glossy, photoreal in print resolution, was precisely the kind of challenge generative tools tend to struggle. These five execution stages demonstrate the high-level process of directing, refining, and correcting the tool until the desired outcome landed.

01
Stage 01 — chalkboard concept with chromosomes drawn on the cream, arrows, tagline and logo.
Chalkboard, chromosomes drawn on the creme, arrows and a logo. The idea was there, but it explained too much.
02
Stage 02 — clean white background with split cookies and hand-drawn arrows.
Off the chalkboard, onto clean white background, but splitting the real cookies felt too literal, not creative.
03
Stage 03 — cream sculpted into stages of mitosis on a photoreal biscuit, but the cream is flat.
The creme sculpted into stages of mitosis on a photoreal biscuit. Right concept, but creme too flat.
04
Stage 04 — art-directed for believability, glossy whipped cream, a clearer figure-8 middle frame.
Art directed for believability, the right gloss, a clearer figure 8 middle frame, surviving at print resolution.
05
Stage 05 — the final concept, refined cream, tight composition, fluted edge reading as Oreo.
The final result: Refined cream, tight composition, the fluted edge saying Oreo without the logo.
A dark Oreo with cream residue licked into the shape of a maths equation, captioned 'Class is back in session.'

Campaign Extension

“The Whole Timetable”

One poster is an execution, a clever one-off idea. I wanted to make the campaign a platform Oreo could own, so the oreo twist becomes the engine, and every subject on the timetable can be revealed inside. Biology 101. is just the first lesson.

For a second concept, I explored Maths 101. We all know someone who licks the creme straight off, leaving a faint residue of creme left behind, except in this version, the residue settles into an equation. A licked-creme residue forming a legible equation was a harder generative problem to control than the creme shapes on the hero, as it needed to feel discovered, not drawn.