Brand: Snickers (Mars, Inc.)
Execution: Webisode
Link: Click Here
Target: Teens
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David

Description:
Snickers and BBDO make a significant online foray with this five-part web series of short films using a combination of animation and live video starring members of the Black Eyed Peas. The premise of the series pits old school Hip Hop against its successors. The Instant Def characters represent the old school culture and are matched up against Boo-T crew who are the representatives of the money driven ‘bling’ culture. In the first webisode, streaming now, the Instant Def crew is shown up by their rivals the Boo-T crew. When they return to their jobs at the Snicker’s factory a mysterious transformation takes place.

What Works:
This webisode is a much better use of the online medium than much of the video that ripped directly from television and slapped up on the web. It is web-exclusive and deftly combines elements of video, anime and graphic novel animation techniques to create a unique and ownable environment.

Snickers has good branding within this webisode, both from its omnipresence above the display window and its integration into the plot (which in the first webisode seems a bit pro-forma but works well enough.)

What is the brand positioning for Snickers? It is not completely evident in the first webisode although it seems like Snickers will give the extra energy to Instant Def that they need to compete with the Boo-T crew. This is consistent with Snickers longterm positioning, if not completely ownable.

The most important aspect of this campaign is a willingness on the part of Snickers and BBDO to try to understand the web and its consumers on their own terms rather than just adapting content from other media to fit the smaller screen.

It is also helpful that this webisode series actually addresses a meaningful conflict within the music world and a clash between two different values.  By identifying itself with the more anti-commercial, traditionalist old-school movement, Snickers sends a good message about value.
What Doesn’t:
Many of these initial web projects, with the notable exception of Amazon Fishbowl, feel light on content, as if the producers are afraid of overwhelming the short attention spans of online viewers. While this advertising blog cannot be prescriptive and define the ideal length and depth of web video and webisode content, we strongly suspect that Snickers could go deeper with the characters and plotting and longer with the duration of these webisodes. We predict success for them because of their famous characters and good production values but we also believe that the bar will begin to raise quickly on original web content.

Branding Bottom Line:
Snickers asks and the Peas do it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Snickers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.