Snickers has taken its iconic platform “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” to an entirely new arena with a world-first creative activation: a full-scale moving billboard on rails. In partnership with T&P Australia, the brand transformed a 50-carriage freight train in Western Australia into a high-visibility out-of-home placement designed to intercept Australians precisely at the moment when hunger and frustration strike.
Across Australia, more than 23,000 level crossings disrupt daily commutes—nowhere more so than in Western Australia, home to some of the longest waiting times in the country. In Perth alone, gates at Wharf Street can remain down for up to seven hours a day, while Oats Street averages around six. For drivers, the cumulative effect is staggering: days lost each year sitting at boom gates watching wagons roll past.
Snickers seized this stalled moment and turned it into an experience. Throughout November, a real WA freight service was reimagined as the Snickers Train—a speeding string of boldly wrapped containers delivering humour, disruption and brand storytelling to commuters trapped in their cars. The activation tapped into a shared Australian annoyance and flipped it into entertainment.
“Most Aussies know the feeling of being stuck at a crossing as the wagons roll by and the hunger sets in. The Snickers Train takes that universal frustration and flips it into something playful,” said Richard Weisinger, Head of Brand and Content at Mars Wrigley Australia.
He added that the goal was to appear in an overlooked moment of irritation where hunger easily causes out-of-sort behaviour. “By transforming a working freight train into a moving billboard, we’re turning passive downtime into a branded experience. We can’t speed up the trains, but we can make the wait feel shorter—and sweeter.”
T&P Australia’s creative director Boris Garelja emphasised how the brand continues to innovate with its OOH storytelling. “The Snickers team have delivered iconic messaging for years. With this chapter, we hope our captive audience stays level-headed at the level crossing—and maybe decides to keep a few Snickers in the glovebox next time.”
Shot in just six hours using three roaming camera units, the activation showcased four fully wrapped Snickers containers, each carrying punchy, hunger-triggered lines such as “Impatient”, “Hangry”, “Long Train Ay” and “Should’ve packed a Snickers.”
A simple idea, executed on an unexpected canvas, turning annoyance into amusement—and reinforcing a brand promise that continues to resonate.
