The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2010
Snickers' Betty White Super Bowl ad makes hunger a transformation — sales up 15.9%
BBDO casts Betty White as a hungry footballer gone 'not himself', launching a campaign that revived her career and grew Snickers sales 15.9% in a year.
Snickers (Mars, Inc.)
What it had to solve
BBDO New York had just won back the Snickers account and needed a launch idea for Super Bowl XLIV; the insight was that hunger makes people act out of character, so the brand could claim the moment between being hungry and being yourself.
How it works
BBDO New York had just won back the Snickers account and needed a launch idea for Super Bowl XLIV. The insight: hunger changes people — they snap, slow down and act nothing like themselves — so the fix is the moment a Snickers brings them back.
The spot cast Betty White, America's beloved grandmother, as a grumpy young footballer who is tackled in a pickup game and then offered a Snickers. One bite later he is himself again, with the tagline 'You're not you when you're hungry' first appearing. Shot in a single chaotic day five weeks before the game, the film became the template for a decade of celebrity transformations.
The ad topped several fan polls after the Super Bowl, revived Betty White's career, and lifted Snickers' global sales 15.9% within the first year while growing market share. The insight proved so portable that 'You're Not You When You're Hungry' eventually ran in more than 80 countries.
Why it lands
- The idea turned a product benefit into a personality transplant, so every ad was a story rather than a claim.
- Casting Betty White against type made the transformation funny enough to spread before the Super Bowl was over.
- The mechanism was endlessly repeatable — a new celebrity, same transformation — so the platform outlived a single spot.
- The tagline named a universal feeling, letting hunger stand in for any out-of-character moment.
What it did
The film topped several fan polls after Super Bowl XLIV, revived Betty White's career, and lifted Snickers' global sales 15.9% in the first year while growing market share; the campaign later ran in more than 80 countries.
What you can take
Make the product the punchline: show hunger as a personality change only the snack can reverse — one repeatable format carried the brand for a decade.
Since then
The Betty White spot launched a campaign that ran for more than a decade across 80+ countries and returned Snickers to the Super Bowl in 2014 with a new BBDO spot. Copywriter Peter Kain and art director Gianfranco Arena, who created the original, rose to executive creative directors at BBDO New York, and later Snickers work kept the same 'playful meanness' of the first film.
Sources
- Snickers: Betty White (Ads of the World campaign page)
- BBDO New York Is Bringing Snickers to the Super Bowl
- Campaign Cup — More reasons to love Betty White
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