Snickers Tied Social Media Pulse to Candy Price

When its “Hungerithm” registered outrage, the price of Snickers at Australian 7-Eleven stores dropped.

September 19, 2017

SYDNEY, Australia – Snicker’s took its tagline, “You’re not you when you’re hungry” to a new level with its campaign that trolled social media to gauge the mood, then adjusted the price of the candy bar at Australian 7-Eleven stores accordingly, Ad Week reports. The “Hungerithm” examined the public’s irritability on social media, with the more angst it found, the more inexpensive Snickers bars became at Aussie 7-Eleven stores.

“It used social sentiment and connected it so simply to a creative idea and a trade proposition, which made the idea a runner,” said Simon Sadie, MediaCom’s global account director on Mars. “The challenge was how to make it possible.”

MIT and Google helped MediaCom with the campaign’s custom built algorithm to look at 14,000 social media posts daily on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, among others. The program then picked consumers at targeted moments—bad weather, political messes and traffic snarls—and sent mobile coupons for Snickers with directions to the closest 7-Eleven location.

The promotion changed 144 times daily, switching the cost of a Snickers more than 5,000 times during the five-week campaign. While some fans tried to influence the candy’s price, the company didn’t go below a certain cost.

The campaign netted a 67% bump in sales of Snickers, with more than 6,600 coupons used. The success has Snickers considering bringing the promotion to more markets, including the United States.

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