Dive Brief:

• Twix is adopting a brand position centered on unity after years of marketing its twinned chocolate bars around a left-right divide, per details shared with Marketing Dive. 
• A new global campaign, “Two is more than one,” launches with an ad that shows two identical cars chasing each other down a desert highway before a daring stunt results in the vehicles flipped on top of each other, with the drivers — twins themselves — driving the combined automobile in unison.   
• The messaging shift is meant to address how consumers under 35 are sick of polarization and are interested in a maximalist mindset, the announcement said. The $70 million effort spans 75 markets and a redesigned visual identity, with media running across out-of-home, TV, social and public relations channels.

Dive Insight:

Twix is shaking up its creative approach in a way that acknowledges the divisive state of the world, albeit in a nonpolitical fashion. For years, the Mars-owned brand’s marketing played up a divide between its left and right sticks with campaigns bearing titles like “Pick a Side.” Ads illustrated the split in colorful ways, including one tracking the story of a pair of fictional founders who end up bitter rivals with neighboring factories. 

“Two is more than one,” which was created with agency Adam&eveDDB, reverses course, emphasizing that hungry consumers should “have it all” and indulge in both sides of the chocolate-and-caramel confection. Twix is angling to win more spending from millennials and Gen Zers whom the brand perceives as exhausted by constant polarization, even the jokey kind, and more interested in fostering togetherness. Those groups are also expected to be worth more than £22.06 billion, or about $28 billion in U.S. dollars, by the end of the decade for the confectionery category, according to the announcement. 

“Centered in the human insight that our fans are fostering maximalist living and abundance, we have reimagined our Twix platform from the idea of having to choose (left or right Twix) to one of having it all,” said Rankin Carroll, chief brand officer at Mars Snacking, in a press statement. “A repositioning that pairs uniquely with the Twix brand and its two-bar format. ‘Two is more than one’ is so simple, so obvious and we’re really looking forward to showing up in new ways to delight our audiences.”

Some of the ways Twix is showing up for “Two is more than one” include the 60-second launch spot, which was directed by Vedran Rupic and pays homage to vintage car chase films. Other elements of the campaign touch on local brand activations, digital audio, a custom augmented reality lens on Snapchat and targeted content running on TikTok and Meta Platforms.

Twix has been laying the groundwork to make a bigger creative splash this year. Around the Super Bowl, it ran a contest based on the habit of second screening, or checking one’s phone during the ad breaks, that presented the winners with two solid gold bars. For the holidays, it worked with grime rapper D Double E and influencer Nella Rose on a festive song celebrating “Twixmas,” the marketer’s term for the period between Christmas and the New Year.