Snickers lifts moods with mobile micro-gifting push from Walmart

Brief:

Snickers, the candy bar marketed by Mars, launched its first micro-gifting campaign to lift the spirits of smartphone users amid "the negativity displayed across thousands of mobile screens daily," per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer. The "Big Mood" program charges users $1.65 to send a personalized message and a gift card that's redeemable for a Snickers bar at any Walmart store.
Through the end of September, mobile users can text the words "BIG MOOD" to 62770 or scan a QR code on "Big Mood" displays in Walmart stores to place a gift order. Snickers will direct gift-givers to a microsite, which can also be visited directly with a web browser, to enter the gift recipient's name and phone number.
Gift-givers also can send one of six custom videos created by rapper and YouTube star Caleon Fox for the program. The videos have comic themes like "Lovey Dovey," "Surprised Like Whoa" and "Ferociously Hungry" to reflect different sentiments. Snickers is working with digital innovation platform Launchpad on the mobile program, per the announcement.

Insight:

Snickers' "Big Mood" campaign is a complete multichannel effort underpinned by mobile-based technologies like SMS texting and QR code scanning at in-store displays, e-gift card fulfillment and online payments. A seamless user experience is critical to the campaign's success as mobile consumers initiate gift-giving by text message, QR code or directly visiting a microsite.

The "Big Mood" program gives Snickers a chance to participate in popular mobile activities while adding a new dimension to social sharing. By teaming with a YouTube star like Fox, who has more than 280,000 followers on YouTube, Snickers can reach millennial and Gen Z consumers that are familiar with his content and likely to adept at engaging with mobile tech.

The new campaign comes as Snickers gains greater publicity for supporting an online petition to move the date of Halloween. Snickers pledged to give away 1 million free Snickers bars if the federal government changes the official date of Halloween to the last Saturday in October, instead of the traditional October 31. The official Snickers Twitter account last week announced the giveaway while urging followers to sign a Change.org petition from the Halloween & Costume Association. The organization claims that changing Halloween to a Saturday will make the occasion safer for kids and less stressful for parents. Presumably, they'll spend more money on Halloween candy, which reached an estimated $2.6 billion in sales last year. The petition had more than 120,000 signatures as of press time.

Snickers has been active with mobile-based promotions this year during key candy-buying occasions. For Valentine's Day, the brand supported the launch of Creamy Snickers with a campaign that urged Twitter users to "smooth over" their holiday "nomance" gaffes. Snickers gave candy fans a chance to win free Creamy Snickers-infused flower bouquets by tweeting the hashtag #SmoothItOver and the chocolate emoji to its @snickers Twitter account.