Oreo posted “You Can Still Dunk in the Dark” during Super Bowl XLVII.
The witty post appeared after a power outage interrupted the game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans on February 3, 2013. Oreo’s social-media team quickly paired a simple image with the dunking slogan, turning the blackout into a joke about dunking the cookie in milk even without stadium lights.
The message became a landmark example of real-time marketing. It was produced and approved rapidly during the outage, rather than being a conventional commercial planned months in advance. The response showed how a brand could use a live cultural moment more effectively than a long, expensive advertisement.
The line is sometimes misremembered as a television commercial or attributed to another snack brand. It was a social-media post from Oreo, whose cookie is traditionally associated with twisting, licking, and dunking. The post reportedly earned 15,000 retweets and 20,000 Facebook likes in its first hour.