Rankin Carroll, chief brand officer of Mars Snacking, says the company behind your favorite candies like M&M's, Snickers, Skittles, and Twix is reworking how it advertises to consumers — and the shift could mean people start seeing very different versions of the same candy campaign.
In an interview on Business Insider's upcoming "CMO Insider" podcast, Carroll said Mars is moving away from traditional, broad advertising campaigns built around mass TV reach and toward more personalized marketing powered by consumer data and AI tools.
"We are able to use the data to be much more precise," Carroll said.
The strategy comes as Mars integrates Kellanova brands like Pringles, Pop-Tarts, and Cheez-It into its portfolio following the company's $36 billion acquisition.
Mars says the era of 'hope for the best' advertising is ending
Historically, Mars, like many companies, relied on large-scale advertising campaigns designed to reach broad audiences over several months. It would have been, "one thing, one channel, big reach, and hope for the best," he said.
Now, Mars is increasingly splitting campaigns across multiple audience groups, channels, and formats. "If you're in a different group, that message would be served to you in a different channel, in a different medium, and shaped differently," Carroll said.
He said the company still believes in scale and mass reach, citing marketing research group Ehrenberg-Bass and the importance of "penetration" and broad consumer reach. However, Mars now believes precision targeting can reduce waste in advertising spending.
The shift is tied closely to Mars' recent decision to move its media business to Publicis after a review process involving multiple agency groups. Carroll said one of the main reasons for selecting Publicis was its "Connected ID" system, which he described as a dataset of 2.3 billion consumer IDs globally that helps Mars identify and target specific audience groups across markets and platforms.
"Everything starts from the growth audience," Carroll said.
Snickers' soccer chatbot became an early test case
Carroll said that younger consumers increasingly expect brands to personalize experiences and allow users to participate in campaigns rather than simply watch advertisements.
One example he pointed to was a Snickers campaign tied to the European Championship soccer tournament.
Mars partnered with Meta and WhatsApp to create a tool that allowed users to send personalized jokes and insults to friends using an AI-powered José Mourinho character. Users entered prompts into the system, which generated customized banter in Mourinho's voice.
Carroll said the campaign represented a major internal shift because it involved user-generated prompts and AI moderation concerns. "You can imagine what would go in," Carroll said.
Mars built "eight layers of protection" around the campaign, he said, to prevent misuse and brand-safety problems. The company later expanded similar campaigns to other countries and brands, including a Twix campaign called the "Twix Harmonizer," which let users send voice notes to friends that would "harmonize the bad news" using AI-generated audio. Carroll described it as another experiment designed to let consumers participate directly in the brand experience.
Mars says AI comes with risks too
Even as Mars expands its use of AI, Carroll said the company is trying to avoid moving too aggressively. "It's exciting, but it's very dangerous," he said of AI. "So we have to be careful."
Carroll added that Mars still believes human creativity remains central to advertising. "Our creativity starts with human beings and it always will," he said.
He also warned that brands risk alienating consumers if they overuse AI-generated content. Still, he said Mars sees personalization, co-creation, and data-driven advertising as long-term shifts in how brands connect with consumers.
"At the end of the day, it's compelling stories well told in engaging ways that they can participate in," Carroll said.