Ever since the start of the NFL season back in September 2021, Snickers has been encouraging and incentivising football fans to socially share moments when they’ve messed up in parallel with pro player mistakes and, on at the start of February (ahead of the season-ending Super Bowl), the chocolate bar finally crowned the ‘SNICKERS Rookie Mistake of the Year’.
The Mars Wrigley chocolate bar brand launched the season-long activation on 9 September and on 2 February Snickers gathered a team of NFL stars and football ambassadors – including Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs, Jalen Ramsey and JuJu Smith-Schuster – to name the ‘SNICKERS Rookie Mistake of the Year’ and send the fan with the winning entry two tickets to Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles.
We rounded up some of our favorite NFL stars, Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs, Jalen Ramsey and JuJu Smith-Schuster to name the SNICKERS Rookie Mistake of the Year. It’s all come down to this – listen in to hear the winning entry that is sending one fan to Super Bowl LVI. pic.twitter.com/cgY7fvfx2q
— SNICKERS (@SNICKERS) February 2, 2022
From 9 September fans were incentivised by a range of NFL and brand prizes (from favourite player shout-outs to Big Game tickets) to visit the snickersrookiemistakes.com website and submit photos, videos or written accounts of their own personal ‘rookie mistakes’ – moments where they’ve made small but embarrassing errors.
The brand, a long-time NFL sponsor, worked with agency BBDO New York on the campaign which associate lapses in judgement to hunger pangs which can be solved by eating a chocolate bar.
Using plenty of social content through the season running with the #SNICKERSRookieMistake hashtag, Snickers aimed to keep the tone light and focus on low stakes errors.
The campaign was created with several NFL stars led by Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster who kicked off the activation by sharing examples of his own on- and off-field fumbles, followed by re-enactments from the likes of LA Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey, Green Bay Packers wide receiver Davante Adams and Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs.
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These confessionals serve as a touching-off point for the chocolate bar’s marketers to engage people throughout the season and see Snickers lea into user-generated content to inform its football marketing, list-build and develop deeper emotional connections.
It goes to show that plenty of people are comfortable enough with sharing their own mistakes and seeing their errors amplified on social media – if the incentives are powerful enough.
The strategy marks something of a tactical shift from Snickers’ previous NFL campaigns which put more focus on players than fans with initiatives such as the ‘Hungriest Player’ which rewarded exceptional performances with an iced-out chain necklace bearing the Snickers logo.
If you missed your chance to enter in 2021/22, not to worry, the brand signed off this year’s activation with the tag ‘See you next season’.
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