UN-RETIRING MR. BEAN FOR A CHOCOLATE BAR

UN-RETIRING MR. BEAN FOR A
CHOCOLATE BAR

Research revealed that Gen AI is best received by consumers when positioned as a collaborator and ‘learning with an expert’ drove the strongest motivation to try a chatbot.

Objective

Increase penetration to drive sales and regain market share in critical markets suffering from significant declines.

Problem

5 years after recapturing global category share through the ‘You’re Not You When You are
Hungry’ platform that launched with Betty White in the US Superbowl, the brand faced a
problem.

People were increasingly concerned about the sugar intake of a big ‘bar’ and had tons of
new alternative snack options to choose from so the same locally driven YNYWYH playbook was not working in places like Russia, Australia and the UK who were seeing
sales declines.

Insight

Brand fame is a lever that helps to drive penetration. The only way to create fame across
very different markets was to adopt the model of global entertainment, not advertising.

Solution

We moved beyond the local budgets and local execution model that we adopted to date and recruited Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) out of retirement to create films, intentionally leaking stories that he was creating a new Kung Fu movie and teasing content with trailers as well as online prequel films.

Impact

The film launched in the UK and was eventually adopted in 60 markets. The markets airing
Bean collectively grew volume sales by 5.38%, ahead of the category and saw market
share growth of 4.06% vs markets that didn’t air Mr. Bean (but were airing other copies).