It’s 10am on a Tuesday morning. Like most days, I ran out of the house two hours earlier with nothing more than a bottle of water in my hand. I’m starving, and lunch seems like a distant reality, so I find myself staring down the agency snack box (again). All of the usual suspects are present: Pop Tarts, Trail Mix, M&Ms, granola bars, and a three year old stick of beef jerky that frightens us all.

Then I spot it. Old reliable in that beautiful brown wrapper with giant blue type — “SNICKERS”. No need to feel guilty; it’s not like I’m eating candy for breakfast. After all, this is a Snickers — it was made to satisfy my hunger.

It’s no accident that I would consider a food that is primarily made up of chocolate and caramel as a reasonable source of nourishment. For over 80 years, Snickers has been positioning itself, not as a candy bar, but as a nourishing, satisfying food source. This was a brilliant branding move in the depression era when fighting hunger was a reality, and filling your stomach was more important than what you were filling it with.

From 1979 – 1995, Snickers built upon this idea with a campaign that consistently informed us that, “Packed with Peanuts, Snickers Satisfies.” They ran ads with Olympic athletes eating Snickers as a post-workout snack; a high school student fueling up before football practice; and professionals using Snickers to help get through the day.

They were the precursor to energy bars, long before energy bars became a $700 million market.

Today, Snickers is cautious not to position itself too seriously as a healthy source of nourishment, but rather continues its crusade against hunger through a star-studded, comedic campaign (which also happened to re-launch the career of Betty White) reminding us that even after 80 years, Snickers still satisfies.

The approach is different, but the brand promise still remains the same. A great example of how creative executions can change drastically without diluting the brand in any way.