Snickers vs. Reese’s: How to turn your competitor Into your campaign

Snickers vs. Reese’s: How to turn your competitor into your campaign

Imagine launching a peanut butter candy against Reese’s.

There is one fairly obvious problem.

People already associate peanut butter candy with Reese’s.

You could spend millions trying to change that association.

You could run side-by-side product comparisons.

You could talk about ingredients, texture, taste, or value.

Or you could find a room full of people literally named Reese and convince them to tell everyone they prefer Snickers.

That is what Snickers did.

To promote Snickers Peanut Butter, the Mars-owned brand assembled a focus group consisting almost entirely of people named Reese, Reece, Rhys, and other variations.

They tried the product.

They complimented it.

Then came the reveal: nearly everyone in the room happened to share the name of Snickers' biggest rival in peanut butter candy.

The campaign, created with BBDO New York and directed by comedian Eric André, turned the setup into a series of awkward, deliberately ridiculous focus-group films. Snickers then pushed the joke further by inviting people named Reese across America to publicly pledge their support for Snickers Peanut Butter.

It's ridiculous.

That's exactly why it works.

Because Snickers found a way to make Reese’s the center of its campaign without needing to spend the entire advertisement explaining why Reese’s is supposedly worse.

That is competitive marketing done properly.

What did Snickers actually do?

The campaign launched on May 28, 2026, as Snickers increased marketing behind its peanut butter portfolio.

The product proposition itself is fairly straightforward.

Snickers Peanut Butter combines creamy peanut butter with crunchy peanuts, caramel, nougat, and milk chocolate. The brand's positioning emphasizes getting both creamy and crunchy textures rather than choosing between them.

But product claims alone would have created a predictable launch campaign.

So Snickers built the creative around a much bigger cultural shortcut:

Reese.

The focus-group videos place seemingly ordinary consumers into a product-testing environment. They react positively to Snickers Peanut Butter before discovering that virtually every participant is named some variation of Reese.

There's even one participant named Greg.

He gets removed.

A tongue-in-cheek disclaimer identifies Greg as a paid actor—adding another layer to the deliberately awkward focus-group format.

Then the campaign moved beyond the videos.

Snickers launched the Peanut Butter Pledge, inviting U.S. residents whose first, middle, or last name was Reese—or variations including Reece and Rhys—to publicly pledge their endorsement of Snickers Peanut Butter.

The first 100 eligible participants could claim promotional rewards, while qualifying entrants also had a chance to win additional prizes.

In other words:

Snickers didn't just find several Reeses for an advertisement.

It tried to recruit the Reeses of America.

The Competitor is the Joke, not the Villain

Competitive advertising has a tendency to become uncomfortable.

A brand starts talking about its competitor.

Then talking about them again.

Then showing comparison charts.

Then finding increasingly specific reasons why the other company supposedly isn't as good.

Eventually, you begin wondering which brand the advertisement is actually promoting.

Snickers avoids most of that problem.

It doesn't need someone to stand in front of a camera and say:

Reese’s is bad. Snickers is better.

The audience understands the joke immediately.

These people are named Reese.

They're enjoying Snickers Peanut Butter.

Therefore:

Even Reese likes Snickers.

That's enough.

The competitor provides the context.

The humor does the selling.

Campaign US described the execution as a way for Snickers to target Reese’s dominance in peanut butter candy while using existing name recognition to disrupt the category.

That distinction matters.

Competitive advertising is often strongest when consumers are allowed to complete the comparison themselves.

You don't always need to say the quiet part out loud.

Snickers is borrowing Reese’s mental availability

This is where the campaign gets strategically interesting.

Reese’s isn't just another chocolate product.

It owns an extraordinarily strong association with one specific combination:

Chocolate + peanut butter.

That is valuable brand territory.

If someone says “peanut butter cup,” Reese’s is likely to enter the conversation quickly.

For Snickers, launching harder into peanut butter means entering territory where another brand already has enormous mental availability.

That's difficult.

But it also creates an opportunity.

Instead of pretending Reese’s doesn't exist, Snickers makes that existing association work for it.

Think about the campaign structure.

You hear:

Reese.

You think:

Peanut butter.

Then Snickers appears.

The competitor's strongest brand association becomes the setup for Snickers' product.

It's almost parasitic positioning—in the strategic sense.

Snickers doesn't need to teach consumers that peanut butter and chocolate belong together.

Reese’s has spent decades doing that.

Snickers simply needs to introduce a different answer when consumers want that combination.

That's a significantly easier marketing problem.

The Risk: You're still advertising Reese’s

There is, however, an obvious danger.

Every time Snickers says Reese, the audience may think about Reese’s.

That's not automatically good for Snickers.

Competitive advertising can accidentally strengthen the very competitor you're trying to attack.

It's particularly dangerous when the smaller challenger relentlessly compares itself to a market leader.

You end up reminding consumers:

The other brand is the benchmark.

Snickers avoids some of that risk because Snickers itself already has enormous brand recognition.

This isn't an unknown candy startup desperately shouting at Reese’s.

It's one famous brand entering another famous brand's territory.

That changes the power dynamic.

The campaign also spends relatively little time discussing Reese’s actual product.

Instead, it turns the name into a comedic device.

The focus remains:

Snickers Peanut Butter tastes good enough that even a Reese approves.

Reese’s provides the setup.

Snickers gets the punchline.

That's the balance competitive advertising needs.

Why the focus group format works

The choice of a focus group isn't random either.

Brands have used taste tests for decades.

There's something inherently persuasive about watching a supposedly normal person try a product and react.

The audience understands the format instantly.

You try something.

You give your opinion.

The advertiser hopes the opinion is positive.

Snickers then corrupts that familiar structure.

At first, the participants appear to be impartial consumers.

Then they realize they're all named Reese.

Suddenly, the product test becomes the joke.

That gives the campaign a useful combination:

Product demonstration + comedy + competitor reference.

And because the format already revolves around people describing what they're eating, Snickers can communicate product attributes without interrupting the entertainment for an obvious sales pitch.

The campaign is funny first.

But underneath the joke, people are still watching consumers taste Snickers Peanut Butter.

That's disciplined creative strategy.

The entertainment isn't detached from the product demonstration.

The product demonstration is the entertainment.

Eric André is a better fit than a random celebrity

Brands also have a habit of treating celebrity casting as a reach strategy.

Find someone famous.

Put them in the campaign.

Borrow their following.

Snickers' use of Eric André makes more creative sense than that.

André's comedy is built around awkwardness, absurdity, unpredictability, and situations that gradually become more uncomfortable than they initially appear.

A fake-serious focus group full of people named Reese fits that style naturally.

The humor would feel different with a polished traditional spokesperson explaining the premise directly to camera.

André helps make the campaign feel slightly unhinged.

Which is exactly what a premise this stupid—in the best possible way—needs.

That's a useful reminder when brands use creators or celebrities:

Don't just ask who has reach. Ask whose existing persona makes the idea better.

Celebrity should improve the creative mechanism.

Otherwise, you're mostly renting recognition.

Snickers turned a product weakness into the campaign idea

There is another strategic layer here.

Why is Snickers talking about Reese’s in the first place?

Because Reese’s is strong where Snickers is trying to grow.

That sounds obvious, but many brands would rather hide this reality.

They'll launch into an established category and behave as though they invented it.

Snickers does the opposite.

It acknowledges the elephant in the room.

Everybody knows who dominates peanut butter and chocolate.

So Snickers says:

Fine.

Let's talk about Reese.

That confidence makes the campaign feel stronger.

Competitive positioning doesn't always mean finding an area where your competitor is weak.

Sometimes it means entering their strongest territory with a sufficiently distinctive proposition.

The product argument is texture.

Reese’s is closely associated with creamy peanut butter filling.

Snickers Peanut Butter emphasizes creamy peanut butter and crunchy peanuts together.

So Snickers isn't simply saying:

We also have peanut butter.

It's trying to create another consideration:

What if you want peanut butter with more texture?

The campaign creates the attention.

The product distinction gives that attention somewhere to go.

Pepsi learned this decades ago

This strategy has a long history.

One of the clearest examples is the Pepsi Challenge.

Pepsi didn't pretend Coca-Cola wasn't the dominant reference point in cola.

It created blind taste tests that invited consumers to directly compare the two.

That was strategically useful because Pepsi didn't need to beat Coke at being culturally iconic.

It only needed to create doubt around one question:

Which one do you actually prefer drinking?

That's the power of well-designed competitive positioning.

You don't attack every part of a competitor's brand.

You choose the battlefield where your product has the strongest argument.

Snickers does something similar, although with significantly more absurdity.

It isn't trying to prove that Reese’s lacks heritage, popularity, or recognition.

That would be ridiculous.

Instead, it narrows the competition to:

Try this peanut butter product.

And then uses the competitor's own name to get people interested enough to do it.

Apple made the competitor a character

Apple's famous “Get a Mac” campaign took another approach.

Instead of filling advertisements with processor specifications and comparison tables, Apple personified the competition.

Mac became one person.

PC became another.

Suddenly, technical positioning became character comedy.

The audience didn't have to understand every operating-system difference.

They simply understood how each character was being positioned.

Mac was relaxed.

PC was awkward.

The competitor became part of the storytelling device.

Snickers is doing something structurally similar.

Reese’s isn't represented by a chocolate cup or corporate spokesperson.

It's represented by actual people named Reese.

That makes the rivalry human.

And human rivalries are simply more entertaining than comparison tables.

Great rivalries give both brands more personality

There is a reason marketers keep returning to rivalries.

Coke vs. Pepsi.

McDonald's vs. Burger King.

Nike vs. Adidas.

Apple vs. Microsoft.

When handled well, competition creates narrative.

And narrative creates something most product advertising struggles to generate:

stakes.

A normal product launch says:

Here's our new thing.

A competitive launch says:

Here's our new thing, and we think it belongs in territory currently owned by them.

Now there's tension.

Consumers can pick sides.

Social teams can respond.

Fans can argue.

Media can cover the rivalry.

The product becomes part of a larger conversation.

But there's a line.

If one brand becomes genuinely hostile, insecure, or obsessed with the competitor, the fun disappears.

The rivalry works best when both brands remain strong enough to take the joke.

Snickers' campaign stays on the right side of that line because the joke isn't:

Reese’s is terrible.

It's:

Imagine getting a bunch of people named Reese to endorse Snickers.

The humor is obvious.

The audience is in on it.

The Peanut Butter pledge turns the joke into participation

The digital pledge is arguably one of the smarter extensions of the campaign.

The focus-group film gives you the premise.

But there are only so many people you can put into one advertisement.

The pledge expands the joke nationally.

Suddenly, the question becomes:

How many actual Reeses can Snickers convert?

That gives consumers a role in the rivalry.

Eligible people named Reese could publicly declare support for Snickers and potentially receive promotional rewards.

Food Network described the promotion as Snickers “needling” its rival through an unusually specific giveaway targeted only at people with the right name.

This is much stronger than a generic:

Enter your email to win free Snickers.

The participation mechanic continues the creative idea.

That's important.

Campaign extensions often feel bolted on.

The ad has one concept.

The giveaway has another.

The website looks completely unrelated.

The social posts repeat generic copy.

Here, everything can live under one simple premise:

Can Snickers get Reese to choose Snickers?

That's integrated marketing in a much more useful sense.

Competitive Marketing works best when the product is actually relevant

There is an easy mistake to make after seeing a campaign like this.

A brand decides:

We need to make fun of our competitor.

No.

You need a reason.

Snickers can invoke Reese’s because both are competing for the same peanut-butter-and-chocolate consumption occasion.

The comparison already exists in the customer's head.

The campaign simply dramatizes it.

If the relationship between the brands were weak, the joke would feel forced.

Competitive advertising works when the audience already understands the battlefield.

That's why Burger King can joke about McDonald's.

That's why Pepsi can reference Coke.

That's why Apple could make PC a character.

Nobody needs a slide explaining why those brands compete.

The rivalry is immediate.

Before using a competitor in your marketing, ask:

Does the audience already see us as alternatives?

If the answer is no, you may be giving your competitor free publicity without gaining much in return.

Challengers can use the leader as category shorthand

This lesson is particularly useful for businesses entering crowded markets.

Imagine you're competing against a company that already owns the category mentally.

You probably can't outspend them.

And you definitely can't erase years of brand recognition overnight.

So don't always try.

Sometimes the incumbent can become useful shorthand.

Instead of spending half the advertisement explaining the category, reference the thing customers already know and establish how you're different.

This happens constantly in technology.

“The alternative to X.”

“All the power of X, without Y.”

“Built for teams that have outgrown X.”

That positioning can accelerate understanding.

But it should be transitional.

Your competitor can help customers understand you.

Eventually, customers still need a reason to remember you independently.

Snickers has that luxury already.

An early-stage company often doesn't.

What Marketers can learn from Snickers vs. Reese’s

1. You don't need to attack a competitor to compete with them

The strongest competitive advertising often creates contrast without hostility.

Give customers enough information to understand the rivalry and let them finish the argument themselves.

2. Use the competitor's strength strategically

Reese’s owns enormous recognition around peanut butter.

Snickers doesn't ignore that.

It turns that recognition into the setup for its own launch.

Sometimes fighting an existing association is less efficient than borrowing it.

3. Make your product difference easy to understand

Snickers isn't offering a twenty-point comparison chart.

Its product story can be summarized quickly:

Creamy peanut butter + crunchy peanuts.

A competitive campaign still needs a product reason underneath the joke.

4. Choose a rival customers already understand

If you have to explain why you're comparing yourself to another business, the campaign probably isn't ready.

Good rivalries require almost no setup.

5. Humor makes competitive advertising less defensive

Aggressive comparison can make a brand look insecure.

Comedy changes the emotional tone.

You're not complaining about the competition.

You're playing with them.

6. Let the Campaign Mechanic carry across channels

Focus group.

People named Reese.

Peanut Butter Pledge.

Same joke.

Different execution.

That's much stronger than inventing unrelated ideas for every channel.

7. Don't let the competitor become more memorable than you

This is the biggest risk.

If audiences leave the campaign thinking only about your rival, you've paid to advertise someone else.

The competitor should provide the context.

Your product still needs the payoff.

Sometimes the competitor is your best creative brief

Marketers are usually taught to obsess over differentiation.

What do we do that nobody else does?

Why are we better?

What makes us unique?

Those questions matter.

But competitive positioning starts with another equally useful question:

What does the customer already believe about this category?

Snickers knew the answer.

Peanut butter and chocolate?

You're probably thinking about Reese’s.

Instead of spending enormous amounts of money trying to stop that thought, Snickers turned it into the campaign.

Find people named Reese.

Feed them Snickers.

Get them to endorse it.

Ask the rest of America's Reeses to join them.

The entire idea can practically be explained in one sentence.

That's why it travels.

Snickers didn't beat Reese’s by pretending Reese’s didn't exist.

It made Reese’s recognition part of the joke.

That is the real lesson behind the campaign.

Competitive advertising doesn't need to shout:

“We're better than them.”

Sometimes the smarter move is to build an idea where the audience already understands exactly who you're challenging.

Then let the campaign do the rest.

At Nitroger, we help businesses sharpen their positioning, understand the competitive landscape, and turn strategic differences into marketing customers can actually remember. Because standing out doesn't always mean ignoring your competition. Sometimes it means knowing exactly how to use them.