Twix creates teatime appeal

Mars' chocolate brand plans to muscle in on KitKat territory with campaign aimed at tea drinkers

The brands owned by the confectionery giant Mars have traditionally benefited from memorable advertising. Who can forget the slogan A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play, or the recently resurrected red and blue car ad?

Mars’ latest television campaign, which promotes the Twix brand, is dry and humorous, featuring a tea lady pushing a trolley along a country road in the pouring rain while singing a 1987 rock anthem by Whitesnake with gusto.

The message of the ad is that a cup of tea and a Twix go hand in hand: the narrator promotes the offer of a free cup of tea with every bar purchased. Consumers can enter a promotional code online to enjoy a cup of tea at Debenhams, BHS, Wimpy or Wild Bean Café. Alternatively, a packet of five teabags will be sent to their home.

The campaign is a clear continuation of the tea accompaniment strategy used in 2007, when Mars launched a £1.6m TV campaign and sponsorship on Virgin Radio to promote Twix as the perfect tea-break snack. In this way, the latest ad, which launched on 14 September, also aims to conquer the traditional heartland of rival teatime brand KitKat.

The slogan Have a break, have a KitKat has long been etched in the minds of housewives, office workers and builders, but Nestlé has done little to continue to dominate this territory. Over the few days before the new Twix ad aired on 14 September, the buzz, value and satisfaction scores for the chocolate bar brand were +3, +13 and +27 respectively.

By 21 September, the brand’s value score had increased two points to +15, and satisfaction had risen four points to +31 – Twix’s highest satisfaction score this year.

By contrast, the buzz score for the brand dipped slightly over the same period, down one point to +1. The campaign’s focus on Twix’s fun-loving identity appears to have paid dividends for Mars, although the ad could have achieved greater cut-through.