• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, April 30, 2024

For almost 20 years, Snickers advertising has been hitting a sweet spot, running creative that connects deeply with the culture.

The insight behind the campaign, “You’re not you when you’re hungry” proved to be so instantly recognizable and relatable that the campaign has amassed an enormous, elemental power.

Figuring that the Mars-made bar owned everything around the idea of hunger, I even credited the Snickers team with inventing the word “hangry,” which it did not.

Regardless, the Snickers-adjacent state of “hangry” (hungry and angry) has entered our bloodstreams and the mainstream.

For my money, though, the best-ever Snickers commercial ran in the 2010 Super Bowl and featured the lovely, then 90-year-old Betty White (R.I.P.) getting tackled in a mudhole during a pick-up football game. It was so shocking to see our beloved Betty getting thrown down in that mud that it caused some viewers to recoil.  Mere seconds later, though, through the magic of CGI, our Golden Girl transforms into another young male player on the team, a dude who could return to his own body after getting hopped up on the caramel, nougat and peanut goodness of the chocolate bar.

The theory is that because of the nuts, Snickers will relieve the “hangry” state quicker than other candy bars, since it’s more filling.

This basic idea worked in hundreds of different scenarios: Snickers to the rescue for making the disgruntled newly gruntled.

Last week, the campaign, created in partnership with BBDO New York, announced a new spot. Called “Hungry Skies,” it’s an “extension of “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry,” but it doesn’t include that phrase.

It will kick off in the U.S. and Australia and eventually appear globally, in more than 30 countries, including China, India, the Middle East, and Africa.

To communicate in all those different cultures and places, the creative would have to take broader strokes than previous spots, and this one does.

Let’s face it: Everything is heightened in the air—smells, sounds, emotions, grievances—plus, as David Bowie famously sang, you’re “sitting in a tin can, far above the world.”

That’s why the phrase “air rage” was invented. But in the last four years, angry airline outbursts skyrocketed during the first and second years of the COVID pandemic, with the FAA announcing a 492% spike in incidents. For the first time, airline employees were being put in danger, attacked, and harassed for trying to enforce mask-wearing.

Incidents were fewer in 2022 and 2023, but fight stats are still way above pre-pandemic levels.

Second: A marked decline in the quality of airline services has also inflamed in-flight meltdowns. The idea of having to pay for what used to be free—a seat with some leg room, carry-on luggage, snacks, and even water—riles passengers. The availability of alcohol (for a price) adds to the mix.

At 45 seconds, “Hungry Skies” shows a plane full of passengers who are acting out in recognizable but sometimes funny ways.

While exaggerated, the annoyances hit home: an elderly woman doesn’t stop ringing the overhead call bell for help (with her cane). There’s a dude doing yoga splits in his seat, his open legs invading the next seat and the aisle, and another man travels with his “emotional support snake” wrapped around him.

The one that seemed too broad shows two young women turning their flight into a spa/beauty day, complete with a scary face mask and manicures. Something about the caricature seems a bit too dumb and therefore sexist, especially when one says to the other, “No, he didn’t!”

But overall, it’s lightly pleasing. By the end, the handsome male flight attendant gets the various problem adult children under control by handing out Snickers bars from a silver tray. Everyone settles down.

“Maybe the hungry skies just need a Snickers” the final frame says.

And there are some clever Easter eggs at the very end, with a super that reads, “No grandmas were harmed,” and another card saying, “Flight attendants, we’re here for you.”

But I couldn’t help feeling my own annoyance rising, as I figured that if I were on that flight with the Snickers bars being given out, I’d gladly accept one -- and then hear, “That will be $18.50, please.”