Snickers Lassos the Super Bowl: An interview with BBDO New York.

von Jeff Finkle , Adforum
Gianfranco Arena
Executive Creative Director BBDO New York


Snickers Lassos the Super Bowl: An interview with BBDO New York.

By Jeff Finkle.

We would like to thank BBDO New York’s Executive Creative Director’s Gianfranco Arena and Peter Kain, as well as Allison Miazga-Bedrick, Sr. Marketing Director for Snickers,for taking the time to talk about their Snickers Live Super Bowl commercial, in which hunger seemed to get the best of Adam Driver.

 

AdForum: What is it about Adam Driver’s personality and personal brand that that you and Snickers thought would be the perfect choice to center the 360-degree Super Bowl campaign around?  

Gianfranco: Adam is an instantly recognizable face who’s already made his mark in a pretty wide range of roles on both big and small screens. He’s a great actor, and we liked that he’s not a one-trick pony. 

 

 

AdForum: Was there a moment during the creative process when the idea of ending the ad with Driver picking up a Darth Vader Halloween costume mask or making some sort of reference to Star Wars was discussed?

Gianfranco: We knew the concept before we cast Adam Driver, so it was clear from the beginning Western and Star Wars wouldn’t be a good mix. 

 

 

AdForum: Who were some of the other celebrity and social media influencers that took part in the live stream event on Snickers’ social pages and SNICKERSLIVE.com and what were some of the challenges in engaging Snickers fans for 36 hours with content while maintaining the humorous tone throughout?

Peter: The Live Stream featured an array of celebrity guests, including Hollywood legend and star of SNICKERS® Super Bowl XLIV commercial Betty White, WWE Superstars The Miz and Maryse, NFL star wide-receiver A.J. Green, and our Super Bowl LI star, Adam Driver. It also featured YouTube celebrities Kandee Johnson and Tyler Oakley. 

Live broadcasts bring an extra level of drama and excitement compared to filmed content. Knowing something’s live just makes you want to watch. On top of the celebrity talent we had throughout, we tried to surprise and delight our fans by showing them something they’ve never seen and wouldn’t expect with each hour of the Live Stream – from inflatable cowboys to security ducks. 

 

 

AdForum: Snickers seems to know their brand followers very well and the fun that they have come to expect from Snickers ads over the years. How much easier is it to work with a client on a Super Bowl spot that lets you take risks like BBDO did that enabled you to execute this campaign the way your team envisioned and engage the audience throughout the week building up to the Super Bowl?

Peter: The best clients demand your best, and Mars is no exception. Over the years, we’ve had success in the Super Bowl with “You’re not you when you’re hungry” SNICKERS campaign. But we know how high the bar is every year--the Super Bowl audience expects to be surprised and awed. We needed to find a way to live up to those expectations without straying from the core insight of the campaign, and our creative relationship with Mars and SNICKERS allowed us to push the boundaries of this platform. Nothing is easy about Super Bowl, but we love the challenge of working with Mars and the SNICKERS Brand Team to try to bring our best work to the game every year. 

Allison: On SNICKERS, we continually want to continue to raise the bar and be innovative, especially for Super Bowl. This year we had a platform approach to our Super Bowl activation - the platform was Live from the 36-hour live stream to the :30 live spot. We aimed to be bold and have a breakthrough spot and this year was no different.

 



Gianfranco Arena
Executive Creative Director BBDO New York