#snickersgate
Mars Wrigley
Issue 54 | March 2020
Agency
CLM BBDO
Creative Team
Creative Directors Benjamin Dessagne, Stéphane Santana Artistic Director Théophile Robaglia Copywriter Joseph Rozier
Production Team
Head of TV Production Isabelle Darroman Producer Pierre Boudin Production Big Production
Other Credits
Commercial Director Judith Romero Account Director Meigge Sauvaget Advertising Manager Lisa Perrot Head of Social Media Fabio Iazzetta Social Media Consultant Youcef Boualem Communication & Influence Manager Marion Weill-Collange Communication & Influence Consultant Fanny Sachot
Date
November 2019
Background
For the past 10 years Snickers campaigns have all been based on “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” In late 2019, the idea was to take the concept to the next level.
What would happen if Mars’s own production teams got hungry? What sort of mistakes would they make?
Idea
Inside their usual wrappers, Snickers bars were deliberately replaced with Bounty bars before they were placed at various sales outlets.
Then Mars France waited to see what would happen.
Within hours, 20,000 outraged consumers had taken to Twitter and YouTube using the hashtag #Snickersgate.
The following day, Snickers came clean and revealed the hoax in a film that was posted on Twitter, switching the tagline from ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’ to ‘We’re not us when we’re hungry.’ (Allergens contained in Snickers and Bounty bars are the same. The brand did not expose consumers to any risk.)
Results
Not yet available.
Our Thoughts
The most recent figures I can find for the ‘Not You’ campaign date back to 2018.
By then, global sales of Snickers had increased by 15.9% since the campaign launch in 2012.
Here we are, eight years later and this brilliant idea keeps on giving.
If you have read Orlando Wood on pages 3-6, he would see this as a right-brained campaign and Mars as a company doing all the right things, investing in the Snickers brand for the long term. It’s an endorsement too of Byron Sharp’s theory that the secret to making brands grow is to “build market-based assets” through distinctive, memorable advertising.