One for Two
Mars Chocolate North America
Issue 49 | December 2018
Agency
BBDO New York
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Worldwide David Lubars Chief Creative Officer New York Greg Hahn Executive Creative Directors Gianfranco Arena, Peter Kain Creative Directors Scott Mahoney, Dan Oliva
Production Team
Director of Broadcast Production David Rolfe Group Executive Producer Amy Wertheimer Executive Producer Anthony Curti, James Young Senior Producer Stuart Miller Production Companies JHF Productions, World War Seven Senior Production Artist Ray McGale Senior Project Manager Amy Orgel
Other Credits
Group Planning Director Annemarie Norris Planning Director Christina Stoddard Communications Planning Director Brian Brydon Planners Schonfeld, Dexter Blumenthal Account Team Kirsten Flanik, Susannah Keller, Lisa Piliguian, Carrie White, Blake Maraoui, Danee Fields
Date
August 2018
Background
The Internet is full of deception.
So, Snickers created a deceptive offer of its own, an offer that only a hungry person would fall for: “One Snickers bar for the price of two.”
Idea
But instead of taking advantage of those who weren’t thinking clearly, Snickers sat them down for a heart-to-heart with a compassionate life coach. After expressing his concern for their well-being, he offered them a better deal on Snickers to ensure that this situation would never happen again.
Once again Snickers was able to prove that hunger has consequences and that the internet is no place for hungry people to be.
Results
Undisclosed
Our Thoughts
Yes, two campaigns for Snickers in one issue of Directory and we are unapologetic about it because this is one of the most brilliant advertising strategies of recent times. The concept of ‘you’re not you when you’re hungry’ has stretched across a number of award-winning TV commercials, into experiential and out onto the net, selling millions of Snickers bars along the way. But the agency’s skill has been in getting the idea to work differently in each medium while remaining fundamentally the same. In TV, substitution is used to show how people change. So, in the US Betty White substitutes for a college football player, in the UK Joan Collins substitutes for a soccer player.
Online, though, rather than depicting other people botching things, the idea is to get the viewer to botch, thus providing incontrovertible evidence that you’re not just hangry when you haven’t eaten, you’re pretty stupid as well. Cunning and funny, we love it.