Millions were spent on Super Bowl advertising and in reality, it all comes down to a Tweet. That’s how Kai Ryssdal portrayed the well-shared tweet from Oreo during the Super Bowl in which the cookie’s branding people jumped on the Superdome blackout, saying “you can dunk in the dark.”

But to call this simply a tweet misses the point. Around the same time, Audi tweeted that it was sending Mercedes Benz some LEDs, a reference to the battle of the lights between the two premium brands. Certainly both were good pieces of content on their own, but Oreo was retweeted nearly 16,000 times while Audi got about 9600. Then there is the follow-on publicity, in which Oreo came out the real winner.

Power out? No problem. twitter.com/Oreo/status/29…

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

Why?

One word: work.

Sunday’s tweet wasn’t just a tweet, it was an extension of a much larger campaign that extends back to Oreo’s centennial, in which they created a “Daily Twist” campaign: for 100 days they put out original content showing the cookie in different and original ways.

Sending some LEDs to the @mbusa Superdome right now…

— Audi (@Audi) February 4, 2013

Sure, the company had a real-time marketing response team, as well as creative executives empowered to make decisions quickly. But they weren’t the first brand to have that.

In reality, this kind of campaign takes time and money to create and build. It’s filled with hits and misses, some get shared widely, others die quickly. But the commitment to the concepts remains.

A sample of Sid’s wonderful work.

It reminds me of a recent trip my children took to the studio of glass artist Sidney Hutter. My daughter innocently asked how long it takes to make a sculpture. The honest response: a lifetime. Because each sculpture is the result of a lifetime of study, training and techniques he developed himself.

The lesson here, even for smaller companies, is to find a strategy and stick with it. All too often clients and prospects want the quick win. They look to PR and marketing as a way to quickly infuse the sales channel with prospects.

In reality these things take time. Plan on spending months or even years with a strategy, growing it over time. A single blog post, interview or article won’t make “put a company on the map,” but it’s part of a mountain of information being built piece by piece, until your brand reaches a following.

Because let’s face it, you probably put out a great tweet on the night of the Super Bowl as well, but it didn’t get the kind of shares that Oreo racked up.