Welcome to Will It Stick, a podcast hosted by Alexis and Melissa as they seek to break down the craziest marketing brand stunts. From what sparked the idea, to whether the stunt proved successful, they take listeners on a journey of brand history. In this episode, they take a look at the number one candy bar in America—Snickers. The Mars company makes more than 15 million Snickers a day to keep up with demand, but this was not the case in the early 2000’s when they hit a slump. How does Snickers have the amazing market share today that it does, when it was created in 1930? Join Alexis and Melissa as they take a closer look.
With a brief history on the creation of the Mars company, its diversification, and the creation of the Snickers bar, Alexis and Melissa jump right in. This household name candy bar and top selling brand was on the verge of a meltdown in the early 2000’s. Snickers lost 10% of their global market share as their marketing was plummeting. Advertised under the name “Marathon” in other countries, in1990 they changed the name to be the same world-wide. The consideration of changing the name back brought out a limited-edition candy bar for 12 weeks that sold millions. About 15 years ago, the major slump ensued due to a branding issue. The old campaigns that had been working had lost their luster, and the homophobic commercial and Feast Campaign from 2007 did nothing to help progress the brand.
The conversation shifts as Melissa and Alexis take a look at how Snickers pulled themselves out of such a slump. The company got to work and partnered with their BBDO agency to focus in on 3 key characteristics to set Snickers apart—relieving hunger, hunger changes your personality (so, being hungry doesn’t make you yourself), and brand recognition with their logo, parallelogram, color, and the iconic image of the inside of a chocolate bar. The “you’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign launched and everything about the campaign screamed “Snickers”. 400 million media impressions were made and the reinforcement of their 4 key brand assets (logo, parallelogram, brown, inside a chocolate bar) took root in the public square.
Listen in as they take a look at a few other stunts that helped to bring their campaign to life. Learn about the Snickers Gate from 2019 that switched the tag line to, “We’re not us when we’re hungry”. Next, hear about the stunt to jump on a news story about Jeremy Clarkson in 2015 and how they marketed consoling him with a Snickers. Finally, we learn about the 2018 banner ad that caught attention by saying “Get 1 for the price of 2”. Snickers worked to touch every demographic in their marketing campaigns and these stunts led to a 16% sale increase in 2 years—one of the greatest marketing comebacks ever. Snickers had honed in on one critical branding rule—people must know it’s you.
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Read “The Untold Truth” article here.
Find BetterMarketing.com’s article here.
Check out AdWeek’s article here.
Read MarketingDive’s article here.
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