Hungerithm

Background

There are few categories more impulse-based than candy bars.

Thanks to the 'You're Not You When You're Hungry' campaign, Snickers had carved out a decently differentiated position in the sector.

One aim of the new campaign, therefore, was to build on that. The second was to find a way for Snickers to take greater control of the impulse moment: in effect, to 'own' the behaviour immediately before the store visit, so that when they did enter they did specifically for a Snickers.

The challenge was to find a way to bring the platform to life on interactive channels.

Idea

The internet, as well as being a place of entertainment and enlightenment, is full of furious people.

Curiously, outbursts of internet anger, tweets of frustration and annoyed selfies tended to peak between meals.

Could this be because the internet was simply hungry?

To help combat the anger of the internet, Clemenger BBDO devised the Hungerithm: an algorithm that monitored online mood and lowered Snickers prices accordingly across Australia. The angrier the internet got, the cheaper Snickers became.

The Hungerithm was a 3,000-word lexicon, which analysed over 14,000 social posts a day to determine online sentiment. It understood slang, sarcasm and context.

Once the online mood was established, it was assigned to one of ten price points, from standard prices when the internet was 'pretty chill' to 75-80% off when the mood was 'losing it'.

The Hungerithm ran live 24/7 at Snickers.

com.au, where users simply clicked a button to generate a 7-Eleven barcode on their phones.

It was promoted online on Twitter and Spotify.

Results

By mid-July the campaign had garnered over 30 million media impressions, a 120% increase in Twitter mentions for the Snickers brand plus hundreds of thousands of video views.

One in five visitors to the site redeemed a 7-Eleven coupon, and the campaign has strengthened ties between Mars Australia and the retailer.

Mars is looking at the possibility of rolling out Hungerithm in more markets.

Our Thoughts

If you go back to the beginning of this project, the task Snickers set itself is a tall order: to influence impulse behaviour in real-time with no control over location or environment.

Of course the success of the ‘You’re Not You When You’re Hungry’ campaign gave Snickers a good start, giving it close association with the idea that hunger and anger are linked.

But taking that idea and turning it into an ongoing, 24/7, real-time promotion is a huge task.This is just a fabulous idea, absolutely true to the core Snickers proposition, but given a witty and highly pertinent twist.

The notion of taking one of the less-salubrious aspects of the internet – the outpourings of rage and abuse that we take for granted – and turning it into a positive for Snickers is sharp. And, given the saltiness of Australian slang and everyday discourse, working out the difference between normal and real anger must have set a few challenges.And let’s not forget that price promotions have a longer-term negative effect on the brand. I suspect that, given the wit and style of the campaign, this will have the opposite effect.