Snickers had been an official partner of the NBA’s Toronto Raptors for three years, but like most sports sponsorships, it consisted of little more than in-venue signage and TV placements during the games. Given the phenomenal popularity of both the NBA and the Toronto Raptors, it felt like there was a bigger opportunity for Snickers to connect with Canadian basketball fans. Snickers didn’t want to just associate themselves with basketball culture, they wanted to participate in basketball culture.

Our goal was to generate social reach and engagement outside traditional media, and transform the impact of our modest budget.

Our idea was to be the first brand to hijack the NBA tunnel walk. In recent years the tunnel walk has become the source of endless content and commentary as players enter the arena and are photographed walking to the locker room sporting the latest fashion. Using Snickers’ iconic You’re Not You When You’re Hungry creative platform, we outfitted Toronto Raptor Delon Wright in an outrageously oversized suit that was sure to garner attention. Following the game, Delon would then reveal that the suit was an unfortunate consequence of a hunger-induced style lapse and, after eating a Snickers, he was now back to himself.

Our strategy was to reach basketball fans across the country and drive engagement with our content. Because we didn’t want anyone to know we were behind the stunt, for the initial phase of the campaign we couldn’t post from the Snickers account or promote any posts. To get around this hurdle we leveraged the Raptors partnership. They would post our content to their social accounts giving us access to over 3.5 million fans across Instagram and Twitter.

After the reveal, we transitioned to a more traditional media strategy of promoting posts from both the Raptors and Snickers social accounts. These posts were supplemented by an influencer strategy wherein hand-picked basketball and fashion influencers would repost and interact with our content.

The execution came to life in two phases – The Set-Up and The Reveal. The Set-Up kicked off just before game time when the Raptors posted a picture of Delon walking the tunnel in his oversized suit on their official Instagram and Twitter accounts. Fans across the country immediately began liking, commenting and reposting the photo. Within the hour dozens of memes had been posted and several sports media outlets had responded.

Basketball fans remained baffled until The Reveal the following day. The Raptors, Delon and Snickers all posted promoted videos to their official Instagram and Twitter accounts revealing that the fashion faux pas was in fact a hunger mistake and, after eating a Snickers, Delon was back to himself.

We didn’t want to just create an ad and put it in front of basketball fans. Our objective was to create a mobile-first program that allowed Snickers to authentically participate in basketball culture - and that’s exactly what we did.

Throughout the campaign, we generated 1.5 million unique engagements. Within hours of posting the first photo, our campaign was a National Trending Topic on Twitter. Dozens of fan-generated memes were created and even NBA all-stars like Dwyane Wade and Kevin Durant engaged with our campaign.

The story was picked up by almost every major North American sports media outlet including Sports Illustrated, Sportsnet, TSN, ESPN and Bleacher Report. In the first 24 hours alone, our campaign generated 23 million earned impressions.

The stunt not only proved that you’re not yourself when you’re hungry, it also earned Snickers a place in the hearts and phones of Canadian basketball fans.