17 Oct Lay’s “Do Us A Flavor Campaign” Does the Marketing World a Favor
Direct response campaigns are a type of marketing strategy that elicit a direct consumer response to a marketer. They facilitate the delivery of a call to action and outcome via direct or online interaction for immediate feedback and response. In 2017, food plays more of a role in our lives than we are even aware of. We are snapchatting, Instagramming, tweeting, and Facebooking pictures of our meals. We are leaving Yelp reviews for restaurants and monitoring other’s reviews to make decisions on what we will eat. We are watching bite-sized cooking videos and saving them so that we can try new recipes. With the amount of information on what we call “junk food” on the internet, people are trying to be more health-conscious, and snack food companies have to incorporate unique and integrated marketing strategies to increase their productivity.
Lay’s potato chips launched a campaign in 2012 entitled “Do Us a Flavor” where they asked people to come up with their ideal combination for the next flavor of Lay’s. Although the flavors that Lay’s rolls out every year are delicious and unique, this idea could teach us all a lot about marketing and the role that consumers play in the development of new products. Consumer voices are increasingly important because they are what fuels the current trends and, with the help of social media, make direct response campaigns so powerful.
Lay’s incorporated social media effectively in their campaign. Anyone who had a flavor idea in mind could visit Lay’s Facebook page, enter some information about their flavor and generate a shareable image of their bag of chips. The company then teamed up with Facebook to turn the “like” button into a vote of “I’d Eat That,” and utilized their Facebook cover photo to become a rotating billboard, which featured a new submission every few minutes. This made every applicant of the contest feel involved, and also kept them on their social media pages to see how it unfolded.
Of course, Facebook isn’t the only social media platform that people are crazy about. Lay’s also turned to Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #sweepstakesentry along with their flavor of choice. Consumers could also announce their picks via Snapchat by swiping up on their chosen flavor and then following a set of instructions to confirm the vote. Lay’s has been overwhelmed by the response because consumers have an incentive to participate because of the prizes. This contest also raises potato chip sales as curious customers try out the three new flavors as part of the contest.
Utilizing Social Media the way that Lay’s has is an excellent way to reach millennials during direct response campaigns. Millennials tend to tune out traditional advertising and want their voices to be heard. In fact, Lay’s has had their hand in almost every facet of modern-day technology and app development. Uber launched UberRUSH which is essentially a delivery service in New York City. Lay’s immediately partnered with them and gave picnic baskets full of the new flavors to various destinations as part of a promotional period.
While Lay’s has vast experience and success in using direct response campaigns, Berning Marketing and Production has the equivalent. If you have a campaign idea, let the team at Berning Marketing bring it to a successful reality.
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