In a one second world, brands need to get noticed in order to get chosen. Our first task was to de-clutter and simplify the Snickers iconography, amplifying what makes the brand unique. To achieve bold simplicity, we focused on the distinctive assets (shapes and colours) that people associated with the brand. In doing so, we reduced complexity to drive noticeability.

The ‘epic crop’ is a purist celebration of the distinctive visual assets that belong exclusively to Snickers. A visual reflection of the brand benefit of ‘substance’, the epic crop is a distillation of Snickers’ proprietary colours (red, white and blue with brown only as an accent) and shapes (the corner of the parallelogram), expressed through the lens of a no-nonsense ‘real’ aesthetic.

The epic crop, combined with the brand’s distinctive assets, became the canvas for the Hazelnut out of home poster campaign.

The out of home executions all used the Snickers ‘epic crop’ as their canvas. To this, we added hazelnut – in this instance a hazelnut rendered in a distinctively Snickers voice. Blue, photographic, oversized, the Snickers hazelnut crashes into billboards and adshels with the heft and impact that the brand is known for. By using photographic subject matter in place of flat blue, Snickers was able to ‘own’ new activations in a branded way.

Whether heroing the instantly recognisable epic crop or cracking a hazelnut in a brandflag reimagined as a nutcracker, the campaign demonstrates a playful use of Snickers equities and a change of pace from one execution to the next.

Although it’s too early to measure the impact of this campaign, research has already demonstrated that the ‘epic crop’ has improved the brand’s distinctiveness. Eye tracking research proved the Snickers epic crop, without any supporting brandflag, drove recognition in 1/16th of a second. In Germany, recognition of Snickers via this new symbol matched that of the established Heineken star with 50% more people noticing the symbol than when the logo is seen alone (in a market where Snickers has only a 1.7% share!).