You’re not you when you’re hungry.
Sound familiar? Snickers’ campaign rings in the ears of many, and for good reason. Humorous and relatable, their advertisements spread across television and online videos had garnered a massive amount of attention. You might have caught a couple of those before , all involving characters not performing well or being a nastier version of themselves, before switching back to their usual state with a quick bite of a Snickers bar.
All, of course, include a phrase along the lines of their slogan “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”
Like any other reputable company, American company Mars made use of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to help market out their chocolate bar Snickers. This meant that they would be competing with other similar companies for the same paid keywords, like ‘chocolate bar’ or ‘snack’, and each word would come with a hefty price tag due to heavy competition. While using keywords directly related to the product or service being rolled out was the norm, Mars had an ingenious idea.
In conjunction with their ongoing campaign, they bought keywords that no one else wanted – mispelt words. ‘Googel’, ‘buisness’, ‘equiptment’, are just some of the wrongly spelt words that litter the search engine landscape, and as no one was buying these keywords, Mars snatched them up hungrily. (well, maybe that’s why they weren’t themselves)
With a pocket full of cheap keywords, they were soon placing themselves at the top of the page when people misspell what they were searching for, at a fragment of what they could be paying for a competitive keyword. In just 3 days after the launch in 2013, it reached over 500,000 people. Be it a car washing servicer or a restaurant (or restuarant) they were looking for, Mars was nudging these careless people by cheekily pointing out their mistake and offering them a little snack to correct both their spelling and their hunger. After all, “Yu cant spel properlie wen hungrie.”
That’s not all Snickers had to offer; digital marketing encompasses various strategies and platforms, and another rising star in the area of marketing was social media. But instead of simply hopping onto the bandwagon merely by paying for ads and manning an active account, Snickers had the brilliant idea of combining AI with social media.
If you have ever ranted to your followers on your Twitter during their campaign, then congratulations, you just brought down the price of a Snickers chocolate bar.
Introducing Hungerithm, an algorithm that analyses the poignant combination of hunger and anger shown on social media and lowers a Snickers chocolate bar if the internet is ‘hangry’ enough. From 14,000 posts on platforms like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, Mars was able to scan and inspect what people were posting and come up with a conclusion on the ‘hangry’ level displayed.
Whether orchestrated or genuine, whether it was a small fuss over the horrible morning traffic or lamenting the results of a political debate, the algorithm dived right into the hearts of social media users and delivered them what anyone would love; a good deal, and at a nearby 7-Eleven too.
Of course, there was a limit to how cheap the bars would get. Slashing prices was one thing, and giving away free chocolate was another.
Few companies can stay relevant to their brand while engaging with their consumers, yet Mars managed to maintain and gain consumer loyalty through innovative solutions. Likewise, digital marketing may be a foreign landscape to some, but at OC Digital, we deliver results with uncanny accuracy and extreme efficiency. SEM and social media marketing, as shown above, are only a few areas you can tap on to get your brand out there. With OC Digital, we help build up your brand with appropriate digital marketing strategies and implement them meticulously, so you don’t have to struggle with it. If you need a boost with marketing efforts, contact us now.
Credits: https://mashable.com/2013/05/01/snickers-seo-misspellings/#jOavyU4SCsq3
