Sitting at my desk, snacking on a Snickers bar I noticed that they had a new marketing campaign underway. On the front of my candy bar, where there used to exist the ‘Snickers’ name, is now a description of a ‘mood.’ My bar said Irritable. Above the
descriptive word is a question – ‘Who are you when you’re hungry?’
This was my first time having a Snickers bar in quite some time, but I wasn’t surprised by this new packaging. For the past few years, Snickers has focused a lot in their TV advertisements on the ‘Who are you when you’re hungry?’ campaign. We see the NFL players as singing divas, we see Brady Bunch kids as rock stars… So a natural progression would be to update the packaging as a part of the campaign.
Over the past year or two, we have seen an increase in personalization in direct advertisement. Coca Cola really took off with this with their ‘Share a Coke’ campaign. Then we see the team personalized beer cans from Anheuser Busch. Personalization, rather it be a name, an emotion, or a team, is a marketer’s way to appeal more to their market. By making their consumers feel like they are a part of the brand. It’s a twist on what we see digitally in email personalization and on websites with behavior based, personalized retargeting.
Personalization is key to successful marketing in the future digitally. For a quick boost in sales, it has shown to work quite well for brands in packaging. Can’t wait to see who incorporates personalized packaging next.
Oh and if you’re wondering if the ‘Irritable’ mood describes me when I’m hungry, that’s a definite YES.
By: Sheena Hunt
Twitter: @SheenaD1
Email: sheena@empowered-strategy.com
The Game Changer 