Frito Lay's - The popular way

By Anushree Bhattacharyya, Devina Joshi and Ashwini Gangal , afaqs!, New Delhi and Mumbai | In Advertising | February 07, 2011

In India, snacking is a habit that is usually accompanied by tea, coffee, and other beverages apart from being eaten as a side dish with meals.

In India, snacking is a habit that is usually accompanied by tea, coffee, and other beverages apart from being eaten as a side dish with meals. The local Indian market is full of variety of snack options, ranging from roasted banana wafers and soya chaklis (crispy savory spirals) to samosas (pastries filled with potatoes/peas). The local market faced competition in 1995 when Pepsi Co brought Frito Lay's to India.

Pepsi Co then set out to craft a series of engaging and innovative promotions and campaigns. The brand known for its 'No one can eat just once' campaign moved its positioning to 'what's the program?' And, in order to give a face to the brand, it roped in actor Saif Ali Khan, as the brand ambassador. Indian cricket captain M S Dhoni recently joined Khan as the second brand ambassador.

For the last two years, PepsiCo has been reaching out to consumers of Frito Lay without any letup. In 2008, it launched the campaign, 'Fight for your Flavour' allowing consumers to vote for a flavour of their choice. The flavour with the maximum votes continued to be in the market. It resulted in the launch of Chip-n-Sauce in two unique flavours (Chilli Chinese with Szechwan sauce sachet and Chatpata Indian with Tamarind sauce sachets inside the pack) in November 2008.

In June 2009, Lay's took a step ahead and introduced its new positioning, 'Lay's be a little Dillogical'. The Dillogical concept was launched to make a strong connect with the youth - talking about what one wishes to do versus what one has to do. Taking the idea a bit further, in October, it launched the 'Give Us Your Dillicious Flavour' campaign. Spread over three phases, the campaign first asked consumers across the country to send in their entries between November 2009 and January 2010. The response was tremendous - 1.3 million entries and the judges chose four winning flavours.

In the second phase of the campaign, the selected - Cheesy Mexicana, Tangy Twist, Mastana Mango and Hip Hop Honey & Chilly - flavours were piloted in the market with the theme 'Bachega sirf tastiest'.

The four winners were Mansi Jain from Delhi (a freelancer with BBC World Service Foundation), who discovered Cheesy Mexicana; Shipra Samanta from Ujjain (who designed Tangy Twist); Sagar Devruhkar of Mumbai came up with Mastana Mango flavour while banker Shouvik Mukherjee of Kolkata thought up Hip Hop Honey & Chilly. Mastana Mango emerged as the winner with over 15, 77,891 votes out of the total 41, 64,886 votes given by consumers. Sagar Devruhkar Mastana got to take home Rs 50 Lakh and 1 per cent of the sales turnover of the flavour.

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