Snickers tests generative AI as a new consumer marketing channel
Snickers is using generative artificial intelligence in a limited-time promotion that turns digital interaction into a branded AI experience and a free candy bar.
Snickers Hungr.AI plays off the brand’s long-used “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” positioning. For the digital campaign, Mars frames inaccurate, overly agreeable or otherwise unsatisfactory artificial intelligence responses as “hungry moments.”
When consumers encounter such errors from their AI tools, they can visit the Snickers Hungr.AI website and access a digital Snickers bar intended to be “fed” to an artificial intelligence assistant. The digital candy bar contains a branded prompt that consumers copy and paste into ChatGPT. The prompt instructs the AI tool to revisit the user’s previous question and ChatGPT response, then answer again using a Snickers-themed personality. The campaign states that the experience is intended for a user’s personal ChatGPT account only.
Consumers who interact with Snickers Hungr.AI through Reddit or Snapchat may also receive a free Snickers bar delivered through DoorDash, while supplies last. The promotion runs through September 20.
For convenience services operators, the campaign offers an example of how major snack manufacturers are using digital experiences and social platforms to build consumer engagement around established products.
“As generative AI becomes part of everyday life, we’re playfully reinventing the way Snickers connects with our fans in today’s culture,” Ashley Gill, brand and content vice president at Mars Snacking, said in the announcement.
The promotion does not include a vending, micro market or office refreshment component. Still, it reflects how packaged snack brands are testing emerging technology and digital channels to generate attention, encourage trial and create new touchpoints for products also sold through convenience and unattended retail channels.
The security question behind branded AI prompts
While the Digital Snickers itself is benign brand marketing, the behavior it encourages illustrates a potential security risk.
Those who were active on the World Wide Web in the early 2000s likely remember the digital e-cards craze. While the original, legitimate products were harmless — a birthday card, holiday greeting or joke — the cards were delivered via a seemingly innocuous link. Scammers soon realized the opportunity that consumer trust in e-cards offered and created fake e-card notices as phishing and malware delivery tools.
The Mars-branded AI prompt is likewise harmless, but the behavior behind it — normalizing copying and pasting third-party prompts — could create similar trust problems for AI inputs.
It underscores the importance of knowing where prompts come from and what they instruct a model to do.
John Hickey, CEO of Tech 2 Success, has previously stressed the need for guardrails around artificial intelligence. During a presentation at NAMA’s Coffee, Tea and Water event in November 2025, he urged convenience services operators to protect personally identifiable information when using AI tools and advised users to challenge AI-generated answers rather than trust them automatically. In February, he explained how many cyberattacks succeed because people can be induced, via subterfuge and by exploiting trusted names and brands, to click links or follow instructions they would normally question.
For operators experimenting with generative AI, the broader lesson is straightforward: Treat prompts and instructions from outside sources with the same scrutiny applied to other third-party digital content, especially when business data is involved.
About the Author
Linda BeckerLinda Becker
Head of Content
Linda Becker is head of content for Automatic Merchandiser and VendingMarketWatch.com, responsible for the brands’ overall content strategy, planning and performance. She oversees the creation and performance of editorial and multimedia content across platforms such as magazines, websites, webinars, podcasts, newsletters, videos, social media, events and eBooks.
Since joining Automatic Merchandiser and VendingMarketWatch.com, Linda has developed a new appreciation for the convenience services industry and its essential role. She is dedicated to serving readers by covering the latest news in the vending, office coffee service and micro market industry. She can be reached at 262-203-9924 or [email protected].