Snickers Ties Pricing to Levels of Online Anger

Online tempers can be notoriously short. Now, US food manufacturer Mars has teamed up with 7-Eleven convenience stores to give Australian consumers cheap Snickers bars whenever the internet gets angry. The 'Hungerithm' campaign ties in with Snickers' tagline 'You're Not You When You're Hungry', which positions the bar as hunger and stress relief.

On a mobile microsite, the brand uses an algorithm provided by the Melbourne Institute of Technology to track instances of swearing, frowny faces, aggressive emoji and disgruntled tweets at corporations on Twitter. The angrier Australian social media users get, the lower the price of a Snickers bar drops.

The Hungerithm Index updates every 10 minutes, and users can lock in the price of the moment by hitting a purchase button to receive a barcode on their phone screens. The code can be used at a 7-Eleven outlet within an hour to save up to 80% on the regular price of AU$1.09.

Tracking individual consumers is just one side of contextual targeting. Identifying and engaging with collective moments through public data is just as important, especially when trying to reach privacy-conscious ad-blocking demographics. Snickers' Hungerithm campaign and Spotify's Moving Day initiative are timely examples of brands using collective online sentiment to identify opportunities to connect with consumers.

For more on contextual targeting, see SXSWi: Hyper-Responsive Marketing and Beyond Ad Blocking, as well as our coverage of the Ad Age Digital Conference 2016 and Advertising Week Europe 2016. Also read Personalising E-Tail and Contextual Commerce for retail opportunities in contextual data.