Dive Brief:
- Mars's Snickers candy bar is adding a real-time discount promotion to its ongoing campaign around consumers being "hangry," per a press release.
- The brand created a tool that will measure hunger levels of the internet using an algorithm it calls the "Hungerithm." As collective online "hanger" levels go up, Snickers will offer increasingly higher discount coupons in real-time at participating U.S. 7-Eleven stores.
- Agency Clemenger BBDO Melbourne created the Hungerithm tool as part of the "You're Not You When You’re Hungry" campaign, and piloted the effort in Australia. The tool works by checking social media posts for mentions, including 3,000 words and phrases to determine sentiment. Hungerithm will be live from Nov. 16 to Dec. 22.
With Hungerithm a hangry internet means cheaper #SNICKERS for you. Get your Coupon Here: https://t.co/xh5arwKrnF #EatASNICKERS pic.twitter.com/cAvNz2OUFg
— SNICKERS® (@SNICKERS) November 16, 2017
Dive Insight:
Snickers has made You’re Not You When You're Hungry the centerpiece of its messaging for a while, namely through TV commercials where angered celebrities portray normal people at their worst in a Jekyll-Hyde scenario that's only fixed when they take a bite of out of the candy. The Hungerithm tool, beyond touting a clever name, shows a savvy extension of the campaign to social media, generating dynamic real-time discounts over the holiday season that react to the way consumers are feeling online.
By using a genuine metric — even one as contrived as a "hanger" level — Snickers can create coupons that likely have more relevance than a random push message or advertisement with the same offer. The brand is promoting the tool on its own social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and provided a helpful graph detailing the way the promotion scales, capping at $1.13 off:
