Hungerithm
Snickers (Mars Chocolate Australia)2016
Hungerithm is a 2016 data-driven pricing algorithm and website for Snickers, created by Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne.
The line
You're not you when you're hungry.
Why it works
Snickers' long-running idea that you're not yourself when you're hungry, turned into a live price. From 25 May to 27 June 2016, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne's Hungerithm read around 14,000 social posts a day against a 3,000-word lexicon, slang and sarcasm included, to gauge how angry the Australian internet was. The angrier it got, the cheaper a Snickers became at 7-Eleven: the price updated more than 140 times a day and could fall to 82% off, claimed with a barcode generated on the brand's website. It is studied as a landmark of real-time, data-driven creativity in which the media, the pricing and the joke are one mechanism, and as proof that a celebrity-led brand platform could be rebuilt for the social age without a celebrity. The agency's One Show entry claims a 67% rise in Snickers unit sales at 7-Eleven. Campaign Brief counts six Gold Lions among 21 at Cannes in 2017, and it won a One Show Gold Pencil.
Techniques
- Real-time and newsjacking An algorithm reads thousands of social posts a day, and the angrier the internet gets, the cheaper a Snickers becomes, updating over 140 times daily.
- Humour The long-running joke that hunger makes you someone else becomes a pricing mechanism, discounting the bar as online tempers rise.
Sources · 4
- Clemenger BBDO Melbourne and Mars Create New Snickers 'Hungerithm'
- Snickers 'Hungerithm' Sets the Candy's In-Store Price Based on the Internet's Mood
- Mars: Hungerithm (2017 Gold Pencil, Social Media / Real-Time Response)
- Australian Campaigns of the Decade: Snickers 'Hungerithm' (2016) via Clemenger BBDO Melbourne
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