Pick a Side

Read the campaign story

Twix introduced its fictional Left Twix versus Right Twix rivalry in 2012. Contemporary reports from Little Black Book and Fast Company credit BBDO New York. The launch film imagined two inventors separating their businesses after a disagreement, giving the two bars inside one pack competing histories. Advertising and digital material invited people to try both and choose a side.

The rivalry was a comic invention, not a substantiated difference in ingredients or manufacturing quality. That distinction is fundamental to understanding the work. Rather than launching another flavour, the campaign gave a familiar product configuration a story. The two physical pieces already existed; the creative work supplied personalities and a question that consumers could answer without learning a complicated new offer.

Editorial reading: An obvious equivalence can become entertaining when a brand exaggerates the language of differentiation. The audience recognises the absurdity and joins the joke by declaring a preference. The mechanism differs from a conventional comparative advertisement because the competing sides belong to the same pack and brand. Neither choice requires rejecting the advertiser, so the conversation remains centred on the product.

This structure also has limits. Playful polarisation should not become a misleading factual claim, nor should participation require people to disclose personal information unnecessarily. A modern extension would need to keep ingredients, allergens and promotion conditions unambiguous. The fictional factory history should remain recognisable as advertising fiction, particularly when short clips circulate without the launch film that originally supplied the context.

A small team can adapt the principle around two genuinely equivalent ways of enjoying an offer. Develop contrasting personalities without inventing performance differences, then ask adults whether the joke is understandable and whether they remember the brand. Test a straightforward product explanation alongside the playful version. If the rivalry is remembered but the offer becomes harder to understand, reduce the fictional detail.

The opened sources verify the launch treatment and planned supporting components, not incremental sales or durable preference changes. Later executions belong to this same rivalry family rather than separate case studies. The transferable lesson is that participation can come from a simple question already latent in the product. A memorable choice does not need a material difference, but the audience must understand that the difference is part of the entertainment.

Use the product structure

Build the question around something customers can see.

Keep fiction recognisable

Do not imply an unsupported ingredient difference.

Test attribution

A favourite side is useful only if people remember the brand.

A small test for another brief

Editorial reading of the challenge: how to make an existing two-part product the basis of an explicitly fictional rivalry.

Brand attribution and recognition of fiction.

Stop if viewers infer a false product difference.

• Identify two equivalent usage choices.
• Create an obviously fictional contrast.
• Compare brand recall and factual understanding.