Snickers Story Has Unexpected Twist

“Detectives used a partially eaten Snickers found at the Cato Pet Hospital in west Jonesboro to track down the suspect in its January 2007 burglary. Police sent the nougat-filled chocolate bar to the state Crime Laboratory, where medical examiners obtained DNA, Jonesboro detective Jason Simpkins said.” ~ Kenneth Heard, Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Did anyone see this news story about a guy who was implicated in a burglary because he left his DNA on a half eaten Snickers bar? Police said that DNA from the Snickers bar on the counter at the scene of the crime helped them zero in on the suspect, Brian Bass.

Here’s the rest of the story. It turns out that the Roscoe & Hermann Agency, a PR firm from New Jersey, set the guy up. Bass was apparently unaware that he’d become part of a clandestine marketing scheme. Barry Adams, a mid-level manager at the firm, told Bass that the company would get him off within sixty days. The marketing plan was nixed in the Snickers board room after legal review, but no one notified Adams or Bass.

Bass’ actions were intended to be part of a branding event designed to get the Snickers brand name into headlines across the country. According to unnamed sources, more than eighty burglaries had been slated for the same weekend, with Snickers bars to be inadvertently left at the scene of each crime. The underlying message to criminals: “Guys, this is the candy bar that bad guys eat.”

The plan appeared to include major rollouts of Snickers inventories to prison vending machines around the country. Right before the story broke, prisons in all fifty states had become buried in pallet loads of Snickers products.

When the Bass story broke, requests from inmates for Snickers candy bars became a trickle and then a flood. Because Snickers distribution pipelines were apparently in place before the news story hit the wires, several legislators have lobbied the FTC for a deeper investigation.

Kudos to Snickers for identifying this untapped market. The marketing plan is a bit nutty, but sweet.