AdMiration feature: Snickers' "Halloween: Unexpected Guests"

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to Snickers’ “Halloween: Unexpected Guests” ad. The ad is part of their 2024 Halloween campaign and is the first time two of the parent brand’s (Mars Wrigley) candies converge in an ad spot.

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to the sound of a doorbell chiming with the image of a bowl of Snickers candy sitting on a hallway table next to a pumpkin decoration. The homeowner grabs the bowl and heads to the door as a group of people can be heard saying “Trick or treat!”

When the door opens and he looks outside, he says, “You? Really” The camera pans to both the Yellow and Green M&M characters in Halloween costumes holding M&M labeled pumpkin candy baskets on his doorstep. 

Green responds, “You got a problem with that?” To which the homeowner responds, “It’s Halloween…you’re giant candies.” A thriller sound blares as both M&Ms are taking a bite of their Snickers and Green says, “You have a point.” Yellow shouts, “Run for your lives!” and takes off down the spookily decorated street. The words “Confused? Maybe you just need a Snickers” appears on screen as Yellow continues screaming down the road. 

The ad closes with an image of a half-bitten Snickers and the words “Halloween Satisfaction.” Yellow pokes out from the corner and viewers can hear Green off-screen saying, “He’s a little dramatic.”

3 facts

• Snickers “Halloween: Unexpected Guests” is a very strong ad, ranking in the top 15% of US ads on both sales and brand equity potential (Sales Impact: 84 and Brand Impact: 85)! The ad has universal appeal with strong performance across both younger and older audiences as well as among men and women.

• The Halloween theme, M&M characters, and playful twist featuring Snickers as the hero make the ad very distinctive and is highly relevant for the occasion and brand. As such, the ad stands out from the clutter and is associated with Snickers.

• Viewers love the twist, humor and iconic characters, which drives strong enjoyability, a great emotional connection and brand appeal. The twist of the M&M characters trick-or-treating, eating Snickers and realizing that people may want to eat them generate both love and laughs.

2 learnings

• You can create a story that is very emotionally engaging in 15 seconds IF you keep it simple (remember the KISS rule). In this case, the creators have focused on 3 key things — - they used a relevant scenario (Halloween and people handing out candy to trick-or-treaters), characters people love (M&M’s) and humor that makes Snickers the hero. Keeping it simple and only as long as it needs to be to make the ad work effectively.

•  Ads don’t always need to communicate functional benefits to work well. Reminding people about a brand creates stronger salience. Creating a strong emotional connection by generating a positive feeling about the brand works well to make the brand come to mind more readily and positively, without the need to talk about product benefits explicitly. 

1 reflection

It can be risky and challenging to feature two brands in an ad when the main purpose is to benefit one brand. While this is not a high risk case since both are owned by Mars Wrigley, the ad demonstrates how to do it well. You want to make the brand advertised critical to the story and give it a prominent role, and Snickers’ Halloween spot does a brilliant job of this. Snickers is integrated into the story of the ad, featured prominently throughout and is the hero because it “saves” the beloved M&M characters from potentially being eaten.

Mars Wrigley’s “Halloween: Unexpected Guests” ad (for Snickers) is one of three short ads from their 2024 Halloween campaign created by BBDO NY and directed by Good Behavior’s Pete Marquis. 

The other ads in the campaign include “Outdoor Skeleton” featuring the popular 12 foot skeleton decoration and “Zombie” which gives a humorous twist on the giant Halloween decor trend with a twerking Zombie lawn decoration.

The campaign also includes a Treat Season sweepstakes, giving participants the chance to win a trunk full of treats every day of the month. 

Tim LeBel, Chief Halloween Officer and President of Sales at Mars Wrigley North America shares, “At Mars, we celebrate Halloween every day, all year long. Our 2024 Mars Wrigley Halloween product line-up is a direct reflection of our consumer obsession and offers a playful blend of taste, creativity and on-trend seasonal offerings to deliver products we know will end up in the ‘good’ pile on Halloween night.”

This is the first time two Mars brands collide in a Halloween ad, making it even more iconic. The campaign is set to run across TV, digital and social media spots.

Snickers’ “Halloween: Unexpected Guests” ad is a treat to watch and is in the top 15% of US ads to drive both short-term sales and brand equity potential (Sales Impact: 84 and Brand Impact: 85)! This is true across all audiences, younger and older as well as men and women.

What drives Snickers’ strong performance?

The Halloween context and funny twist in the story that features Snickers as the hero to the beloved M&M’s characters set this ad apart. The timely Halloween spot breaks through strongly and is seen as very distinctive and highly relevant with its playful spirit. After all, who doesn’t relate to trick-or-treating, chocolate candy and a bit of fun at Halloween?

There are a couple of humorous twists that are highly effective and contribute to strong enjoyability (Enjoyment mean score 4.2 vs 3.9 norm):

• First, they are receiving a Snickers bar (not M&M’s like we might initially expect).

• Second, the M&M characters are trick or treating (isn’t this a bit dangerous when they are often given out as candy to be eaten?)

Of course, viewers also love the cute and funny M&M’s characters (celebrity appeal 4.5 vs 3.2 norm) who play a pivotal role in the story.

Here are some of the elements that people particularly like about the ad:

• "I like the M&M’s trick or treating and they ate the Snickers because it was really good. Snickers is a candy that kids love to get when they are trick or treating."

• "I like that they subverted my expectations by showing the M&M’s and then making it a Snickers commercial.”

• “Halloween and giving out candy to the children. The M&M was there asking for candy and got a Snickers and liked it."

• "I like the visuals of the two M&M’s eating a Snickers bar."

• "I like the Snickers and M&M commercial crossover."

• "I liked the characters and the humor."

• "I like the Halloween theme and colors".

• “The concept of the commercial is funny."

• "It was entertaining and funny, and you know what it was advertising."

• "I like everything about it, down to the candy jokes."

“Halloween Unexpected Guests” is a great example of creating a strong emotional connection in only 15 seconds (Overall Emotion 65% vs 56% norm). The execution  blends humor, character appeal and two well-loved brands to take viewers on an emotional journey, particularly of love (37% vs 28% norm) and laughter (25% vs 7% norm) in a short period of time.

The story immediately elicits love (and like) when we hear the doorbell ring and see that it’s a trick-or-treat theme. Feelings of both love and laughter are evoked when we see the beloved M&M characters and the joke that they’re trick-or-treating is set up. People find the joke very funny (“It’s Halloween. You’re giant candies.”) and laughter peaks with Yellow’s over-the-top reaction of running away and screaming, “Run for your lives - ahh!” as he realizes people may want to eat them for Halloween because they’re giant candies.

The strong emotional connection and relevancy create significant brand appeal for Snickers (brand appeal mean score is significantly above the norm, 4.1 vs 3.9 norm). In fact, this is a great example of creating positive salience for the brand without conveying overt product benefits. The focus on humor and Halloween fun with Snickers and M&M’s creates positive associations for Snickers without talking about product specifics.

What is particularly noteworthy about the ad is that it features two well-known brands (M&M’s and Snickers), even though the main brand advertised is Snickers. Despite this, 63% of people spontaneously mention that they saw a Snickers ad (vs. 68% norm) after watching a clutter of several ads. Not surprisingly, some people mention M&M’s as the brand featured, but it is relatively few (15% spontaneous brand recall), especially given the prominent role the characters play throughout the ad.

While it’s rare to feature two brands in a single ad, this spot works effectively because Snickers plays a prominent role and is the hero. When asked to play back the story of the ad, people spontaneously recall the story well, including the set up, humorous story twist, the M&M’s characters enjoying eating the Snickers bars, Snickers being the hero that “saves” the M&M characters and Yellow running away as he realizes he is a big Halloween candy that people might want to eat.

The Snickers “Halloween: Unexpected Guests” ad is a great example of success in many ways. It demonstrates how combining humor, beloved characters and seasonal relevance can result in a distinctive, high performing ad. In 15 seconds, the spot does a masterful job of creating strong emotional engagement of love and laughter, conveying Snickers as the hero who saves the M&M’s celebrities and generating strong brand appeal. Well done, Mars!

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