“Consistency is underrated, great creativity can be built on creating something consistent.” 

Fabio Ruffet, VP Brands & Content Europe & Central Eurasia at Mars Snacking, is underlining the creative firepower of playing the long game. For Snickers, 2025 marks 15 years of the iconic strapline ‘You're not you when you're hungry’. A brand platform which continues to connect with consumers across the globe in new and unexpected ways. 

Ruffet is speaking alongside André Moreira, Global Chief Creative Officer at T&P, as the duo drop the latest iteration of the brand’s long-running ‘You’re not you when you're hungry’ brand platform. For the new campaign, the brand has tapped World Cup winner and current Ballon D’Or holder (two-time winner), Aitana Bonmati, who gives Snickers bars to hungry players who are not acting like themselves. 

“The idea is fresh, it has a different angle, but it also has that element of humour and protecting what the brand is famous for,” explains Ruffet. It is a freshness that is reflected in the fact that Bonmati is the star of the spot but not the storyline. A step change from a model of sports marketing in which choosing a female sports star to front a spot is at times a substitute in itself.

The brand has chosen to focus on connecting with football fans across Europe because watching football is a key moment for snacking. Ruffet explains: “We have switched the passion point while simultaneously supercharging the brand relevance.”

Ruffet’s approach underlines the creative firepower of taking a ‘we ahead of me’ approach to brand building. 

While there is nothing inherently wrong with ego, the uncomfortable truth remains that the creative firepower of consistency is at times sacrificed in pursuit of leaving your mark. Building a brand with a legacy can last beyond the tenure of any given CMO.

Ruffet’s drive is rooted in a long-term approach. “At Mars, we really live and breathe the belief that consistency is the single biggest tool for brand building,” he explains. 

He brings receipts to this debate, courtesy of the brand’s long-running partnership with System 1. His understanding of the brand is rooted in investing the time and energy in understanding its advertising legacy. The very first thing he did when he joined Mars in March last year was analyse the brand’s advertising over the past 30 years.

Ruffet joined the business from Bacardi, where he was Global Brand Director of Bacardi Rums. While Bacardi has a distinct approach to brand building, Mars has its own heritage. Understanding the history of the brand has enabled Ruffet to bring clarity to his vision, not just for where the brand is going next creatively, but what he envisages the long-term legacy of marketing to be.

“Our job as marketers at Mars is to leave the brand we are working on better than we found it,” he explains. He continues: “It is about brand equity, not short-term effects. We all have to be students of the brand.” It is an open-minded approach that has seen him dedicate his time and energy to understanding what is behind the brand’s vest and the myriad of ways Snickers has delivered creativity to the ‘You’re Not You When You’re Hungry’ brand platform.

“Creativity is about doing something that really recognises your brand,” he adds.

Creativity thrives in constraint 

For Moreira, consistency is a creative opportunity; finding ways to be creative within a framework is a unique challenge. “When the brief hits your table, it is an opportunity to add to a legacy. When a platform is as rich as this, you see it as a creative opportunity,” he shares

He continues: “To stay consistent, you have to be extra creative. This campaign does so well and has been going so long because people have been creative for all these years and see this [brand platform] as an opportunity to bring more creativity to the table.” It is a step change from the ‘difficult second album’ school of thought. 

Ruffet explains that the creative briefs for the campaigns have always been rooted in how to bring freshness to the brand platform. He explains: “There is often a misconception of consistency about being all about doing the same thing.”

In a wider marketing ecosystem in which marketing leaders are in danger of forever chasing the next big thing, Ruffet’s approach is a masterclass in understanding and utilising the brand equity you already hold. 

Noting how the industry often equates creativity with bravery, he explains: “In today’s world, being consistent demands a lot of bravery.”

The AI opportunity

One of the most successful elements from Mars’ approach to brand building is maintaining brand consistency while driving a challenger mindset and adopting new technology.

“Technology is such an enabler for us,” says Ruffet. He points to the first-of-a-kind campaign Snickers created with T&P and Helo, powered by ElevenLabs, Synclabs and Open AI GPT 4.0, which enabled fans to create personalised videos of José Mourinho.

The creative idea was brought to life by including eight separate stages in the AI pipeline. Stages of development which included safeguarding, to ensure consistency and brand-safe content. (Ruffet confirms that there were zero brand safety issues with the campaign.)

He explains: “It was a first. We are always finding new ways to bring a different angle to what we are saying, while always respecting the brand.”

The power of light relief

Yet while technology is key to engagement, the duo agree that humour is also vital. The question is, in a year with as many challenges as 2025, is the ability of marketing to provide some much-needed light relief even more important?

For Moreira, humour in advertising drives the possibility of greater engagement with consumers. He shares: “It feels like something that works and also something that people are craving. What is interesting in the work that we have been doing with Mars and Fabio is exploring different routes to humour.”

From an executional perspective, that means leaning into humour that specifically relates to both different platforms and different audiences. He points to the example of the brand’s recent spot, which places José Mourinho at the heart of a Viking battle scene. A creative execution Moreira describes as ‘very simple, very visual humour.’

It is a creative runway that continues on the Bonmati campaign, which focuses more on football fandom. “It is that combination of doubling down on humour as a tool for engagement in a context where people crave it,” adds Moreira.  

“Humour is so close to the DNA of the brand,” says Ruffet, pointingto  the growing number of studies that underline the long-term effectiveness of humour as a tool for brand building.

“In our advertising, we have been on a journey with humour for a very long time. Skittles has pioneered a very off the wall humour,” he shares, adding: “The world feels very heavy right now and a bit of levity doesn’t get lost on people. But we don’t jump on the latest trend, we are always in it for the long term.”

Celebrity sells

Everyone remembers their favourite Snickers spot. Moreira shares that the latest Mourinho campaign is his choice. While Ruffet picks the iconic 2010 Betty White Super Bowl Spot, Mr Bean’s 2014 campaign and Elton John’s epic 2018 rap battle. Yet while the celebrity cameos abound, arguably it’s the platform itself that’s the enduring star. 

”We work with celebrities that bring themselves to the brand,” he adds, sharing that Snickers is a brand that gets a yes very quickly from celebrities. 

Moreira adds that the celebrities are being themselves in the spot, so they must be comfortable embracing humour. 

He explains: ”One of the really interesting aspects of this campaign that doesn’t get talked about enough is how all of these celebrities say yes to this; they accept that they are not taking themselves too seriously. You don’t see that very often. Often celebrities are brought in to bring cachet, but with this they are the service of the idea which is a real magic trick in this work.”

The retail media opportunity

Capitalising on the opportunity of retail media is also at the top of Ruffet’s marketing agenda. “We can see the growth in TikTok Shop as it lands across Europe and Meta platforms,” he shares, adding: “The opportunity for success for a brand is to think natively rather than create an ad with a toolkit with some social assets.”

In practice, this means that social is never an afterthought. “We have no idea that doesn’t start with social,” he continues.

The creative approach has come to life with cutting-edge platform-first creative thinking. For example, before WhatsApp carried advertising, Twix was successfully raising brand awareness amongst the 7 billion voice notes sent on the platform every day with a voice synthesiser. 

Drawing on the power of two (there are two Twix finger biscuits in a single serve packet) the campaign doubled your voice, supported by influencer-led activation.

The opportunity of co-created creativity

Notably, amid industry narrative that human creativity and AI are mutually exclusive pursuits, Moreira sees the fusion of the two as the real creative opportunity. 

He shares: “What advancements in technology and AI do when used well is open up an opportunity to be more human and allow people to become part of the creative output.”

When you think of a challenger brand mentality, you might not automatically view a 15-year-old brand platform as a source of inspiration. Yet the consistency of ‘You’re not you when you're hungry’ has allowed Snickers to play in unexpected and cutting-edge spaces. 

“There is an untapped opportunity to rethink technology to connect in a more human way and Mars is leading the way with that,” adds Moreira.

Ruffet places people, both within Mars and as customers, at the centre of his marketing universe. He explains: “If we don’t put the consumer at the heart of what we do, we will not get to their hearts. It’s about co-creating with them and creating experiences that add value.”

While he notes that you can block adverts or choose advertising-free subscription services, brands can still add value. He shares: “We want to create experiences and be there because we are invited and add value.”

Far from every creative decision being outsourced to AI, technology acts as an amplifier for Mars. “That’s why I’m an optimist,” says Ruffet, continuing: “Tech is an enabler, not a replacement, you still need human creativity.”

Creativity can come from anywhere

Building a culture where this human optimism, creativity and curiosity can thrive is at the very top of Ruffet’s agenda. “We believe that creativity can come from everywhere,” he explains. An approach reflected in the fact that he is just as invested in an on-pack promotion as in an above-the-line advertising campaign.

He doesn’t leave building a creative culture to chance. It is the little, yet regular moments for sharing and learning and development which make the brand’s culture of creativity a living, breathing commitment.

Every Friday, the Mars marketing team share what has inspired them that week in their WhatsApp chat and engage in curious debate. “We are nerdy, we go to D&AD to find those less obvious examples of great work,” Ruffet adds.

“As a company, we know to stay iconic we have to put creativity front and centre,” he explains. In short, Mars’ leadership believes deeply in the power of marketing to drive growth – a belief central to the brand’s ability to take creative risks. 

At a time when AI-induced anxiety and economic turmoil are bringing a sense of uncertainty to the industry, the duo share the belief that now is an amazing time to be a marketer. An unwavering optimism that is increasingly important in showing the next generation of marketing leaders that the business of creativity is still worth getting up for. 

From embracing AI to democratise creativity, to putting Mars’ brands in the hands of fans in new and unexpected ways, opportunities abound. While the future of marketing may not be linear or predictable, by playing the long game Mars continues to strike the balance between maintaining brand integrity and driving innovation forward. An approach that proves that caring deeply about your brand, its legacy and its people is still one of the most powerful competitive advantages in marketing.

15 years of ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’

A selection of iconic spots from Snickers

2010: Super Bowl spot starring Betty White

2014: Mr Bean spot

2018: Elton John Rap Battle