In this and the next three chapters, we’ll examine the last of the marketing mix tools—promotion. Companies must do more than just create customer value. They must also clearly and persuasively communicate that value. Promotion is not a single tool but rather a mix of several tools. Ideally, under the concept of integrated marketing communications, a company will carefully coordinate these promotion elements to engage customers and build a clear, consistent, and compelling message about an organization and its products.
We’ll begin by introducing the various promotion mix tools. Next, we’ll examine the rapidly changing communications environment—especially the addition of digital, mobile, and social media—and the need for integrated marketing communications. Finally, we discuss the steps in developing marketing communications and the promotion budgeting process. In the next three chapters, we’ll present the specific marketing communications tools: advertising and public relations (Chapter 15 ); personal selling and sales promotion (Chapter 16 ); and direct, online, mobile, and social media marketing (Chapter 17 ).
Let’s start by looking at a good integrated marketing communications campaign. In the fiercely competitive snack and candy industry, where well-established brands are fighting for survival, the inspired-yet-durable Snickers “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign has given the iconic brand new life. No matter where you see the message—on TV, on a mobile screen, in a friend’s post, or even on a Snickers candy bar wrapper—the imaginative campaign clearly and consistently drives home the brand’s “Snickers satisfies” and “You’re not you when you’re hungry” positioning in an engaging and memorable way. It has also made Snickers the world’s leading sweet snack.
SNICKERS: “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry”
It all started with a now-classic Snickers ad in the 2010 Super Bowl. In the ad, during a neighborhood pickup football game, octogenarian Golden Girl Betty White appeared as a football player who was “playing like Betty White”—that is, very poorly. But after biting into a Snickers bar, she morphed back into a young, athletic footballer who played more like his usual self. The ad ended with the now-familiar slogan “You’re not you when you’re hungry” followed by the tagline “Snickers satisfies.”
The Betty White ad generated tremendous buzz, reinvigorating the then-stagnant Snickers candy bar brand. According to Nielsen, it was the “best-liked spot” of that year’s Super Bowl, and it achieved the highest score on the USA Today Ad Meter rankings. The ad went viral, racking up tens of millions of views online and earning seemingly endless media attention. The “You’re not you when you’re hungry” slogan went on to become the cornerstone for of a long-running, highly successful integrated marketing communications campaign that has propelled Snickers to the top of the global confectionary market.
Every great marketing communications campaign starts with a unique brand message, something that sets the brand apart. For decades, Mars has positioned Snickers on one overriding brand attribute: Snickers is satisfying. Heartier than most candy bars, Snickers combines ingredients like chocolate, nougat, and caramel with the protein power of peanuts. The “Snickers satisfies” tagline emphasizes the bar’s stomach-filling properties. Before the current campaign, Snickers pitched the bar to young athletic males as a meal alternative. One classic print ad, for example, showed an approving mother sending her son off to football practice with a Snickers bar.
But by the early 2000s, Snickers was in a rut. Its positioning had grown stale; its sales and market share had flattened. The brand needed a new creative concept—something that would rejuvenate Snickers and broaden its market appeal. Rather than abandoning its established positioning, however, Mars extended it with the fresh new “You’re not you when you’re hungry” theme. So while “Snickers satisfies” remains the brand’s baseline positioning, “You’re not you” is the creative “big idea” that now brings the positioning to life in a clever and engaging way.
“You’re not you when you’re hungry” taps into a powerful and universal emotional appeal—hunger. It reaches a broad market. Almost everyone can relate to how being hungry changes who you are. The positioning is as powerful for women as for men; for older generations as for younger ones; for office workers, factory workers, or students. It works across global cultural lines. Finally, the “You’re not you” theme lends itself to no end of imaginative and entertaining ads and executions across varied media platforms.
From that first Betty White Super Bowl ad, the “You’re not you” campaign has spawned a host of creative ads in more than 80 countries. One memorable TV ad featured the late Robin Williams as a football coach instructing his team to “kill them—with kindness” by making balloon animals and tea cosies. Then there was the Snickers Brady Bunch ad for Super Bowl XLIX in which roughneck Danny Trejo portrayed a snarling Marcia and quirky Steve Buscemi played a disgruntled Jan. That ad ranked third-highest among that year’s Super Bowl ads in terms of earned impressions and went on to win a first-ever Super Clio (the Academy Awards of advertising). During Super Bowl 50, another Snickers ad mimicked the iconic photo shoot featuring Marilyn Monroe in a white dress standing over a breezy subway grate—only this time, the updraft revealed grumpy-faced Willem Dafoe’s bony legs and tighty-whiteys. That ad pulled in more than 11 million views on the Snickers YouTube channel alone.
The “You’re not you” campaign also works well in print. One print ad shows three sprinters in start position on a track, one of them facing the wrong direction. Another shows four soccer players in position to block a free kick, all with their cupped hands protecting important body parts save one who is unguarded, hands above his head with his jersey pulled over his face. Still another ad gets the point across without using humans at all. In a reversal of roles, it shows a zebra in hot pursuit of a lion. Each simple visual is accompanied by a cross-section of a Snickers bar and the phrase “You’re not you when you’re hungry. Snickers satisfies.”
Beyond TV and print ads, the “You’re not you” campaign is fully integrated across a range of digital, mobile, positional, and other media, even packaging. Snickers’s current “Hunger Bar” wrappers directly reinforce the campaign message, with labels containing mood descriptors such as Cranky, Loopy, Spacey, Whiny, Snippy, Curmudgeon, Goofball, and Drama Mama. Snickers urges customers to call out contrarian-acting friends with an appropriately labeled Snickers bar. Mars even created a clever two-minute mini-reality show video highlighting a Snickers hotline operator who dispatches bike messengers to deliver the wrappers to deserving candidates.
The Snickers “You’re not you when you’re hungry” mantra taps into a powerful and universal emotional appeal—hunger. Everyone can relate to how being hungry changes who you are.
Judy Unger/Alamy Stock Photo
The Snickers “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign’s numerous digital elements are designed to engage customers and trigger consumer-generated content. For example, a recent “Snap a Selfie with your Snickers Bar” contest invites the brand’s more than 11 million Facebook followers to share photos of “who R U when U R hungry”—the winner will receive $100,000 and his or her own personalized Snickers bars. A Snickers “You’re Not YouTube” campaign signed up 13 influential YouTubers, with a combined following of 7 million subscribers, to illustrate their own “You’re not you” moments. Snickers also ran a YouTube contest inviting fans to submit their own photos, videos, or memes and to share them socially with #EatASnickers.
In yet another digital campaign, this one in the United Kingdom, British celebrities posted four “out-of-character” tweets—such as professional soccer player Rio Ferdinand tweeting “Really getting into knitting!!!” or glamor model Katie Price tweeting “Large scale quantitative easing could distort liquidity of government bond market”—followed by a fifth tweet promoting Snickers bars and quoting the campaign slogan #yourenotyouwhenyourehungry. Such digital efforts effectively engage and entertain the brand’s digitally savvy fans while reinforcing the Snickers mantra.
Despite its diversity, no matter what the platform—whether print or packaging or TV, laptop, and mobile screens or something else—the Snickers campaign is much more than just a scattered collection of clever content. What makes the campaign so powerful is that all its pieces are carefully integrated under the brand’s “Snickers satisfies” and “You’re not you when you’re hungry” positioning. The message strikes a core human emotion—that you’re likely to get a little out of sorts when you haven’t eaten for a while—in an engaging and memorable way. No matter where you are in the world or how you receive the message, the campaign delivers a clear and consistent brand message.
Thus, after more than six years, the popular Snickers “You’re not you” campaign is still packing energy. Prior to the campaign, Snickers was losing market share. However, not long after Betty White made her Super Bowl debut, Snickers surpassed Mars’s own M&Ms to become the planet’s best-selling candy, a position it still holds today. With an expanded lineup that now includes Snickers Almond, Snickers Peanut Butter Squared, Snickers Bites, and Snickers Ice Cream bars, the $3.5 billion Snickers brand now contributes more than 10 percent of giant Mars, Inc.’s total annual revenues. Thanks in large part to the innovative “You’re not you when you’re hungry” integrated marketing communications campaign, the brand’s long-standing claim holds truer than ever for both the company and its customers: “Snickers satisfies.”
BUILDING GOOD CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS calls for more than just developing a good product, pricing it attractively, and making it available to target customers. Companies must also engage consumers and communicate their value propositions to customers, and what they communicate should not be left to chance. All communications must be planned and blended into carefully integrated programs. Just as good communication is important in building and maintaining any other kind of relationship, it is a crucial element in a company’s efforts to engage customers and build profitable customer relationships.