“Starving Artists” is an ad campaign developed collaboratively by BBDO New York and Mars Chocolate North America/Snickers Crisper. In 2016, the Ad campaign won the Best Use of Radio in an Integrated Campaign. Rather than a strict Radio advertisement, the “Starving Artists” campaign spanned artistic disciplines and media platforms.
Snickers, as a brand, was introducing a new product. The Snickers Crisper bar was a combination of the classic Snickers candy bar and a new component, crisped rice, called the crisper. In prior years, Snickers had developed a successful campaign with the tagline “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” The ads from that campaign often depicted subjects in brief commercials making decisions or taking actions they normally wouldn’t because of hunger. A Snickers bar appears, the main subject takes a bite, and everything reverts to normal.
With the Snickers Crisper ad campaign, the production team built on the existing “You’re not you when you’re hungry” tagline and explored new territory. The team partnered with Spotify, where the campaign’s target market spends a lot of time, and developed unique, one-off songs that fused multiple contrasting genres and emotive patterns. Examples include:
- Lullaby + Metal
- Sleepy + Angry
- Aggressive + Loopy
- Kooky + Sad
The collaborative album filled with one-off songs was released on Spotify.
The objective of the ad campaign was to introduce the new Snickers Crisper product and engage the target market in a unique, novel way. The campaign was the first time Spotify had ever collaborated with a brand in this way to produce unique content for the platform.
The target market for the ad is a younger demographic aged 18 to 30, who spend time on Spotify consuming media and listening to content on the platform.
The ad wants the audience to listen to the unique songs in the Starving Artists album for novelty, humor, and entertainment. As listeners engage with the album on Spotify, Snickers could increase brand and product awareness. Ultimately, Snickers would want listeners of the album to purchase the Snickers Crisper candy bar. The specific features of the Snickers Crisper bar that would drive customers to purchase the product is the novelty and fresh combination of the candy bar. The ad campaign and the songs on the album on Spotify illustrate the new product’s distinctiveness, and the combination of rice crisp and the typical Snickers flavor would create a new experience for consumers.
Will Gillingham 