Branded content and entertainment is a dynamic, growing area in Australia as brands look for more innovative opportunities to connect with their audiences outside of traditional advertising. Product placement/integration in top rating programs has gained in popularity and the increasing frequency of this promotion is pushing brands to find more inventive ways to cut through consumer consciousness and connect emotionally. There are no clear guidelines to branded entertainment per se in the Australian market, however commercial interests must be declared if the activity doesn't sit in commercial airtime or space. As long as an integration or sponsorship is clearly promotional in nature, rather than paid for, undeclared ‘cash-for-comment’, it is acceptable.

We created ‘Snickers Hunger Blunders’ – a series of segments within existing programs, designed to closely reflect the content of the program itself. The first show was The Project, a lighthearted look at the day’s news. We created a weekly Hunger Blunder segment that ran for 21 weeks. Each segment contained an opening Snickers branded screen, followed by a clip taken from the day’s news anywhere across the globe where someone of note had done something funny, silly or even outrageous, and finished with the host reminding the audience “you’re not you when you’re hungry”.

We also partnered with Before The Game; Australia’s informative, entertaining view on Australian Rules football. 8 times across 24 weeks a Hunger Blunder was shown which contained footage of a player doing something stupid, followed by a hastily convened “press conference” where the player apologized for their behavior and explained it was because they were hungry.

The Snickers Hunger Blunders have been a resounding success! 21 content pieces ran in program nationally within The Project and 8 pieces nationally within Before The Game, reaching a combined audience of over 4.2m and a combined cumulative audience of over 13.5m. We received in excess of 20' of prime time TV content in program.

In addition to our overwhelming success with content, we knew we resonated locally when we saw a 29% increase in agreement with the statement “Snickers is a brand for down to earth people” (from 21% pre campaign to 27% post campaign).

And most importantly - sales of Snickers bars increased by over 18% from pre to post campaign!