Hungry Purchase Resale
Snickers
Issue 33 | December 2014
Agency
Impact BBDO Dubai
Creative Team
Regional Executive Creative Director Fadi Yaish Copywriter Akhilesh Bagri Art Director Jamie Kennaway
Production Team
Digital Account Manager Benjamin Schwartz Project Director Alexandre Guimaraes Technical Lead Wim Coetzee Digital Art Director Taraka Tennakoon Senior Flash Developer Mustafa Khusalgadwala
Other Credits
Senior Account Manager Katie Guy BU-General Manager Talal Sheikh Elard Group Account Director Samantha Stuart-Palmer Clients Charlotte West (Vice President Marketing) Valdir Nascimento (Regional Marketing Manager, Mars GCC)
Date
February 2014
Background
Dubai was truly a shopper's paradise. With over 40 shopping malls, it attracted over 100 million visitors every year. Things went particularly crazy during the epic month-long sales. With everything, from stationery to super cars being offered at slashed prices, shoppers were in rapt attention. Snickers wanted a share of this attention too. To break through all this clutter, tongue-in-cheek was the way to go.
Idea
The idea started with the insight that often during sales, people bought things they later regretted. The 'Snickers Hungry Purchase Resale' campaign blamed these bloopers on hunger.
Innovative banners took over the landing page of Dubizzle.com, the region's leading classified website. These banners actively helped promote and sell items people had purchased when under the influence of hunger.
A mistaken purchase could be uploaded straight to a prime ad space sponsored by Snickers. When visitors to the site clicked on this, they were redirected to the classified ad and the item could be sold on.
With this idea, Snickers was able to tap into a universal human behaviour in a way which perfectly suited the brand and which also gave extra meaning to the 'You're Not you when you're hungry' platform.
Results
In just a week, over 200 submissions were received. Which translates to 200 real people vouching for the brand on a website that attracted over a hundred thousand visitors a day. The interactive banners attracted a click through rate of almost 5 times that of the industry standard. 80% of the items posted, were sold on the very same day.
Our Thoughts
For me, a successful online campaign is one that turns people into participants. It was interesting to note that most of the Cyber Golds at Cannes this year were films. But digital’s greatest asset is that it can turn a brand engagement into an experience, which this surely did for two hundred rueful people, who had been carried away by hysteria and bought something they didn’t want and didn’t even like. We’ve all been there.