Challenge
How do you make a global proposition for the world’s biggest chocolate bar relevant to a local market without any local copy and sell more Snickers? That was the challenge Snickers faced in Australia. As with most global brands, Snickers has a global campaign and positioning, and made use of celebrities. It was centred around the idea of ‘You’re not you, when you’re hungry’. In Australia, the Snickers brand had long been the blue collar chocolate bar – the understated, unpretentious bar on the shelf. The challenge was to bridge the gap between what was undeniably an accurate brand insight, and the execution of that insight in using international celebrities, which had little or no relevance in the Australian market. There was also a target to outstrip category sales growth of 4%.
Insight
‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’ distils the inability of people to function properly when they haven’t eaten.
To truly connect with their audience on a local level, the communications strategy was to use real people, making real mistakes, in real time – and owning them, whilst linking hunger to sales in an engaging relevant way.
Solution
To do this Snickers needed ongoing examples of what happens to people when they don’t eat, to move the idea from Hollywood fantasy closer to home. The brand needed to leverage locally produced, live television which would enable fresh content to be integrated in real time. The Snickers Hunger Blunders was born.
Snickers focussed on two key passions of the Australian market: current affairs and sport. For the Project, a weekly news and current affairs programme, the Snickers Hunger Blunders ran with unique content for 21 weeks. It consisted of footage from around the globe, repackaged and introduced by a panel member from the Project. Each segment contained an opening branded screen, followed by the footage, the host informing viewers that ‘you’re not you, when you’re hungry’, ending with the Snickers Hunger Blunder end frame.
It featured everything from the Queen adjusting her underwear on a trip to Australia, to local politicians explaining that ‘unemployment starts when people don’t have jobs’.
Snickers also partnered with Before the Game footy show. 8 times across the season, footage was shown of a players Hunger Blunder, from the league’s top player kicking the ball into a fan's face, to another arriving at hospital under-dressed, and ‘looking like an rival supporter’. This was followed by a ‘hastily convened’ press conference, where the players apologised to their fans and team-mates because they were hungry. They then explained they have since had a Snickers and were now OK.
Results
Sales increased by 18% from pre-campaign to post campaign, outstripping the category growth of only 4%.
Brand salience increased by a whopping 10%, and Snickers resonated locally with a 29% increase in agreement with the statement ‘Snickers is a brand for down to earth people’.
The content pieces had a combined audience reach of over 4.2 million people and a combined cumulative audience of over 13.5 million.