Snickers

History

In 1930 Mars introduced Snickers, named after the favorite horse of the Mars family. The Snickers chocolate bar consists of nougat, peanuts, and caramel with a chocolate coating. The bar was marketed under the name "Marathon" in the UK and Ireland until July 19, 1990, when Mars decided to align the UK product with the global Snickers name (Mars had marketed and discontinued an unrelated bar named Marathon in the United States during the 1970s). There are also several other Snickers products such as Snickers mini, dark chocolate, ice cream bars, Snickers with almonds, Snickers with hazelnuts, Snickers peanut butter bars and Snickers with Extra Caramel.

Snickers Duo

A replacement for the king size Snickers bar was launched in the UK in 2004 and designed to conform to the September 2004 Food and Drink Federation (FDF) "Manifesto for Food and Health". Part of the FDF manifesto was seven pledges of action to encourage the food and drink industry to be more health conscious. Reducing portion size, clearer food labels, and reduction of the levels of fat, sugar, and salt were among the FDF pledges. Mars Incorporated pledged to phase out their king-size bars in 2005 and replace them with shareable bars. A Mars spokesman said: "Our king-size bars that come in one portion will be changed so they are shareable or can be consumed on more than one occasion. The name king-size will be phased out."

These were eventually replaced by the 'Duo', a double bar pack. Though this change to Duos reduced the weight from 3.5 to 3.29 ounces (99 to 93 g), the price remained the same. The packaging has step-by-step picture instructions of how to open a Duo into two bars, in four simple actions. As Mars stated fulfillment of their promise, the Duo format was met with criticism by the National Obesity Forum and National Consumer Council.

Australian recall

In December 2000, tens of thousands of Snickers and Mars Bars were removed from New South Wales store shelves due to a series of threatening letters which resulted in fears that the chocolate bars had been poisoned. Mars received letters from an unidentified individual indicating that they planned to plant poisoned chocolate bars on store shelves. The last letter sent included a Snickers bar contaminated with a substance which was later identified as rat poison. The letters claimed that there were seven additional chocolate bars which had been tampered with and which were for sale to the public. As a precautionary measure, Mars issued a massive recall. Mars said that there had been no demand for money and complaints directed to an unidentified third party.

Caloric value

The USDA lists the caloric value of a 2-ounce (57 gram) Snickers bar as 280 kilocalories (1,200 kJ). As of 2016, the United Kingdom bar has a weight of 48g, with 245 kcal,and the Canadian bar 52g with 250 kcal. The four-pack bar in the United Kingdom has a weight of 41.7g, with 213kcal.

Bar weight

Over the years, the bar weight has decreased: Before 2009, in the UK a single Snickers bar had a weight of 62.5g. This weight was subsequently reduced to 58g in 2009, and to 48g in 2013.

Products containing Snickers

Containing approximately 450 calories (1,900 J) per bar, deep fried chocolate bars (including Snickers and Mars bars) became a specialty in fish and chips shops in Scotland in 1995, and in the early 2000s, became popular at US state fairs.

In 2012, the British Food Commission highlighted celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson's "Snickers pie", which contained five Snickers bars among other ingredients, suggesting it was one of the unhealthiest desserts ever; one slice providing "over 1,250 calories (5,200 kJ) from sugar and fat alone", more than half a day's requirement for an average adult. The pie had featured on his BBC Saturday programme some two years earlier and the chef described it as an occasional treat only.

Variations

Others include:

It's So Satisfying

In 1980, Snickers ran ads which featured a variety of everyday people discussing why they like Snickers. The ads featured a jingle that said "It's so satisfying" and had the classic hand that would open and close showing a handful of peanuts converting to a Snickers bar. "Packed with peanuts, Snickers really satisfies" was shown in the commercials.

1984 Olympics

Mars paid $5 million to have Snickers and M&M's named the "official snack" of the 1984 Summer Olympics, outraging nutritionists. Sports promotions in international games continued to be a prominent marketing tool for Mars, that would keep Snickers as an international brand while also selling local bars in some markets.

Not Going Anywhere For a While? (Hungry? Why Wait?)

Beginning in 1995, Snickers ran ads which featured someone making a self-inflicted mistake, with the voice-over saying "Not going anywhere for a while? Grab a Snickers!" The tag line at the end of each ad proclaimed, "Hungry? Why Wait?"

One such ad had a player for a fictional American football team showing off his new tattoo of the team's logo on his back to his teammates. He then shows it to his head coach who, after complimenting the tattoo, immediately tells him that he's been traded to Miami. The player then goes to have his old team's logo replaced with the new team's logo.

Some of the ads were done in conjunction with the National Football League, with whom Snickers had a sponsorship deal at the time. One ad featured a member of the grounds crew at Arrowhead Stadium painting the field for an upcoming Kansas City Chiefs game in hot, late-summer weather. After finishing one of the end zones, and visibly exhausted, one of the Chiefs players walks up to him and says the field looks great, "but who are the Chefs?", showing that despite all the hard work the painter accidentally omitted the "i" in Chiefs. Another had Marv Levy in the Buffalo Bills locker room lecturing his team that "no one's going anywhere" until the Bills figure out how to actually win a Super Bowl.

Snickers Feast

In 2007, Snickers launched a campaign which featured Henry the VIII and a Viking among others who attend the "Snickers Feast". It consisted of various commercials of the gang and their adventures on the feast.

Super Bowl XLI commercial

On February 4, 2007, during Super Bowl XLI, Snickers commercials aired which resulted in complaints by gay and lesbian groups against the maker of the candy bar, Masterfoods USA of Hackettstown, New Jersey, a division of Mars, Incorporated. The commercial showed a pair of auto mechanics accidentally touching lips while sharing a Snickers bar. After quickly pulling away, one mechanic says, "I think we just accidentally kissed.", and another mechanic exclaims, "Quick! Do something manly!" and in three of the four versions, they do so mostly in the form of injury, including tearing out chest hair, striking each other with a very large pipe wrench, and drinking motor oil and windshield washer fluid. In the fourth version, however, a third mechanic shows up and asks "Is there room for three in this Love Boat?"

Complaints were lodged against Masterfoods that the ads were homophobic. Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese is quoted as saying

"This type of jeering from professional sports figures at the sight of two men kissing fuels the kind of anti-gay bullying that haunts countless gay and lesbian school children on playgrounds all across the country."

Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) president Neil Giuliano said "That Snickers, Mars and the NFL would promote and endorse this kind of prejudice is simply inexcusable." Masterfoods has since pulled the ads and the website.

Mr. T

In 2006, Mr. T starred in a Snickers advert in the UK where he rides up in an army tank and shouts abuse at a football player who appears to be faking an injury, threatening to introduce him to his friend Pain. Another advert featured Mr. T launching bars at a swimmer who appeared to refuse to get in a swimming pool because of the cold temperature of the water. In 2008, a European Snickers commercial in which Mr. T uses a Jeep-mounted Minigun to fire Snickers bars at a speedwalker for being a "disgrace to the man race" was pulled after complaints from a US pressure group that the advertisement was homophobic. These adverts usually ended with Mr. T saying "Snickers: Get Some Nuts!"

NASCAR

In NASCAR racing, Snickers (and the rest of the Mars affiliated brands) sponsor Kyle Busch's #18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. Prior to that the brand served as a primary sponsor for Ricky Rudd's #88 Robert Yates Racing Ford as well as an associate sponsor for the team's #38 car driven first by Elliott Sadler and then by David Gilliland, and an associate sponsor for the MB2 Motorsports #36 Pontiac driven by Derrike Cope, Ernie Irvan, Ken Schrader, and others. In 1990, Bobby Hillin drove for Stavola Brothers Racing in the #8 Snickers Buick, marking the candy's first appearance as a sponsor; it had since been driven by Rick Wilson and Dick Trickle.

FIFA World Cup & UEFA Euro Sponsorship

Snickers was an Official Sponsor of the FIFA World Cup from the year 1990 until 1998 and the UEFA European Championship from 1996 until 2000.

You're Not You When You're Hungry

In 2010, a new advertising campaign was launched, based around people turning into different people (usually celebrities) when they're hungry (taking the new campaign's name "You're Not You When You're Hungry" quite literally). In 2010, Betty White and Abe Vigoda appeared in the first Snickers commercial in this campaign, playing American football. The commercial was ranked by ADBOWL as the best advertisement of the year. Later that year, Snickers commercials featured singers Aretha Franklin and Liza Minnelli, and comedians Richard Lewis and Roseanne Barr. A 2011 commercial featured actors Joe Pesci and Don Rickles.

The tagline varied depending on the commercial's location or what variety the commercial is showing. The UK version (featuring men in a changing room turning into Joan Collins and Stephanie Beacham as a result of hunger) retains Mr. T's slogan. In Latin America, the slogan was the same as in the UK version, except that men doing extreme sports turning into the Mexican singer Anahí as a result of hunger.

In 2013, Robin Williams and Bobcat Goldthwait also appeared in a Snickers football commercial. In March 2014, a commercial featuring Godzilla was released to promote the 2014 Godzilla film. In the commercial, Godzilla is shown hanging out with humans on the beach, riding dirt bikes, and water skiing; he only begins rampaging once he's hungry. After being fed a Snickers bar, he resumes having fun with the humans.

In October 2014, Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean returned on television by appearing on several UK Snickers commercials and cinema spots.

In February 2015, Snickers' Super Bowl XLIX commercial featured a parody of a scene from an episode of The Brady Bunch entitled "Subject Was Noses." In the commercial, Carol and Mike try to calm down a hungry and angry Danny Trejo. When the parents give Trejo a Snickers bar, he reverts into Marcia before an irate Jan (played by Steve Buscemi) rants upstairs and walks away.

In 2016, for Super Bowl 50, another Snickers commercial was made, featuring Willem Dafoe (as Marilyn Monroe) and Eugene Levy, where "Marilyn" complains about filming the iconic "subway grate" scene in The Seven Year Itch. After being given a Snickers, Marilyn goes ahead with the scene, with Levy operating the fan below, commenting that the scene won't make the movie's final cut, that nobody would want to see it.

WrestleMania

Snickers has been an official sponsor of WWE's WrestleMania events, including WrestleMania 2000, 22, 32 and 33, while it's Cruncher variant sponsored WrestleMania X-Seven, XIX, XX and 21.