Doritos Super Bowl Commercial Campaign - Essay Example

Doritos Super Bowl Commercial Campaign The purpose of the research The research explores the substance behind the successof Doritos Super Bowl campaign, seeking to develop the grounding on which modern marketers can draw vital lessons to improve their strategies as well as enhance quality and creative impressions in the market. In addition, the research enumerates various expert deductions and analysis into the subject matter as well as insights into practical participatory marketing techniques with reference to Doritos. Introduction Contemporary marketing entails the formulation of strategies and campaigns that beat the stiff competition experienced in the highly creative markets. The Doritos’ Super Bowl campaign gives insights on what innovative organizations can do to make their marketing more effective and capture the attention of consumers in the market. Designed by Frito-Lay, the campaign is an online competition run annually, which gives consumers the chance to create their Doritos advertisements and the best aired in the Super Bowl. The contest is the largest online video competition globally, and undoubtedly, one of the most successful in its caliber according to last year’s YouTube impressions. Owing to the fact that the results justify the means used, it is evident that Doritos’ marketing techniques are the cause of this profound success, some of which are analyzed in this paper. The context of participatory marketing in Doritos Chief marketing Officer at Frito-Lay, Ann Mukherjee clearly postulates that participatory marketing is the future of contemporary marketing. She notes that the success behind the idea of Super Bowl lies within the recognition of the upcoming branding trends, where the consumers are actively involved in the branding process by the company. As a key strategy, Frito Lay recognizes the great impact that active participation contributes to modern marketing, attributing to the fact that people are not just passive recipients of information, but active contributors in the production and distribution of brands and their contents in their various kinds (Boone, and Kurtz 56). The campaign relays useful techniques that underlie consumer-generated content advertising, which makes the consumers virtually own the brands and remain loyal to the brands that they have helped to build and this fact has continually improved the sales of the company. From the graph and table below, the introduction of the Crush Super Bowl contest in January 2012 had a tremendous effect on the sales in that month. In this respect, participatory marketing strategies are very effective and according to Doritos, an immediate effect on the popularity of the brands. The period that preceded the ad contest also experienced customer response due to the anticipation that the advertisements of the contest had on the consumers. The data showing the percentage increase in sales due to the 2012 contest is shown below. Time 26th Dec 2011 26th Jan 2012 29th Feb. 2012 28th Mar 2012 Percentage increase 6.2 % 7.9 % 5.8 % 5.2 % Consumer inclusive approaches to marketing, according to research prove the most lucrative and successful of trends, making it an irresistible package for modern marketers. In perspective, the success of the campaign is often attributed to the way in which Frito-Lay tracks and evaluates performance of the competition. Since the launch of the campaign, Frito-Lay has continued to test the media value of the competition, online pass-along measures as well as the brand equity. (Hines, and Bruce 44) further recommends the growth of the above measures with time to correspond with the market conditions and continued changes in tastes and preferences of the consumers. Trusting consumers of information In addition, Frito-Lay works on the principle that the consumer is the best source of information on what the market needs (Tadajewski and Brownlie 92). The campaign has achieved much since its inception because Frito-Lay trusts their consumers. Although most marketers have questioned the fact that random consumers of a product may not give great advertising content for the company’s brands, the company believes that participatory marketing hands the brand over to the consumers, who are able to handle and take care of it when they love it. The company further notes that this kind of advertisement is the main reason that the contest has grown over the years, to the remarkable extent that the contest offers very little information to the entrants, yet they come in their thousands to make the ads. This year’s innovative assignment has borrowed the theme of previous years, to come up with something new, unique, and funny in the way that it has never been done before. The whole gist of the competition lies with making awesome ads, that feature Doritos and have never appeared anywhere else on television or online sources, but is limited to only permissive content that cannot be termed as explicit to the viewers of the television. Apart from this normal constraint, Doritos offers no other conditions in the formulation of the ads, giving the customer the freedom to think outside the box and manipulate creativity to do the project (Jefkins, and Yadin 36). In respect of this fact, the company believes that the contemporary generation does not believe in taking instructions, rather it believes in leaving customers to pursue what they think out of creativity, which is what the contest offers. Develop strategies in line with the market Growing with the market is an intricate lesson from Doritos; with reference to the period that the campaign has run and remained relevant in the market. It is of importance to note that various other brands have entered the market and stumbled in participatory management techniques, and others have neglected the idea. Ms. Mukherjee believes that the continued success of the strategy in Doritos lies with the leveraging of creativity from thousands of customers as the key survival strategy in participatory marketing. This strategy responds to the unique demands of the wide Doritos demographic scope, which is the modern generation. In fact, (Riggs 45) notes that the modern generation is not looking for brands that they can purchase, rather, they seek brands, which they can purchase into. In simple terms, brands which represent their ideals and act as their voice for their preferences. In the near future, the company notes that this strategy will continue to be used and reviewed in the context of its continued viability. However, (Boone, and Kurtz 76) notes that user-generated content may not be popular for the coming generations, and in this case, the company should adopt the consumer-based strategies that will be most relevant at that time. Embrace participatory marketing as the main strategy In view of the fact that, many other companies come up with consumer-designed advertisements here and there, Doritos believes that this is just a part of the whole initiative that is used all round the year in its marketing techniques. The Chief Marketing officer notes that consumer-generated strategies should only be pieces of the broader picture that is the company’s main tactic. Further, the success of Doritos mainly lies in the fact that the consumer is their main point of focus, every move centers around making sure that the consumer is highlighted as much as possible. Directors do not only ask for participative advertisements during the Super Bowl, but it uses consumer participation all year round in its advertising needs. In 2007, Doritos came up with a new product that it needed the customers to give a name to the new flavor, a contest that operated throughout the year, as it involved marketing the brand in new markets by the use of the consumer-driven techniques (Tomasko 32). Most recently, however, Doritos came up with the Unlock Xbox campaign in 2010 that was geared towards inviting the consumers to create a game incorporating the Doritos brand. In perspective, the project went for quite a long time and to date the best game that was selected from the ones done has been downloaded more than a million times by the consumers. Ms. Mukherjee notes that the program is a daily event; it is what the company should set out to do every morning because participatory management may lose taste to the consumers if not creatively undertaken. Do not forget Ad agencies in your advertising In addition, the company ought to still lay emphasis to the Ad agencies, although participatory marketing to a large extent undermines the role of these crucial agencies. Super Bowl advertisements mostly cost Doritos millions of dollars to build and manage however brief some of them may seem. What is unknown to many is that Doritos still uses adverts from filmmakers, who charge much less, than the Super Bowl advertisements cost. For instance, the company has this year purchased ads of up to 3000 dollars, which makes use of people with low professional backgrounds, a trend that poses serious considerations over the future of traditional professional advertising agencies. In this light, Doritos emphasizes that larger organizations are still relevant to modern marketing, although their roles have greatly changed from sole producers and innovators of content to facilitating the quality of the content. For example, Doritos employs professional ad services from notable agencies in the market like Goodby Silverstein and Partners to generate content that would encourage their customers to participate in the contest. However, caution is given to the agencies not to monopolize their operations as in the yester years, but rather to concentrate on relaying quality in the market because competition could erode their activities permanently from the market (Hines, and Bruce 61). Making consumers the ambassadors of your brand The success story of Doritos originates from its unique ability to make its consumers the ambassadors for their brands. The story begins at the point in time, where Doritos requests for submissions from the public and their esteemed customers. What follows naturally is a follow up by three types of communities, those who want to compete in the Super Bowl, the section that creates the buzz for the contest due to their passion and the others who watch and vote the best contestant. As the competition gets stiff, Doritos engages their contestants in training on how best to design and market the adverts, which helps fire up creativity and professionalism in the type of work expected. Assessing the situation from one angle, the campaign brings together thousands of people who participate in the contest, as well as those who become finalists at the end of it all. This year in particular, Doritos produced television commercials urging people to turn out in their numbers and vote in the winner. What is most remarkable about this year’s contest however is the way in which Doritos encouraged online voting through social media, urging as many people to participate though tweets, blogs or any other manner through which voting could take place. A key strategy for any organization here lies with the powerful integration of participatory advertising and the social media. Part of this year’s resounding success of the Super Bowl has been attributed to the use of the internet, which has helped the contest go international and reached most people across the globe. Conclusions One important lesson that stands out in the research is that organizations should strive to get cutting-edge advertising techniques and stick to them. It is also clear that creative designs and marketing techniques, from the example of Doritos, can only be realized when integrated with customer-oriented formulations, which is the ultimate marketing tool to be on top as far as advertisements are concerned. The social media further played a key role in the success of this year’s contest, owing to the partnership of Doritos and Facebook and boosted the popularity of the contest globally. Recommendations Modern companies must grow with their market to discover what at a given time the most relevant mode of participatory marketing is, as well as the strategies to adopt. This is the only route to success in the contemporary world. Alongside modern participatory advertising, organizations should focus to strike a balance between the agencies and the consumer-generated methods for success in the advertising field. In addition, companies should focus on the integration of participatory marketing with the social media as in the example of Doritos. This helps reach a wider scope of customers as well as get feedback on the campaigns. Works Cited Boone, Louis E, and David L. Kurtz. Contemporary Marketing: Plus. Fort Worth: Dryden Press, 2005. Print. Christensen, Lars T. Intertextuality and Self-Reference in Contemporary Advertising. U.st, 2010. Print. Hines, Tony, and Margaret Bruce. Participatory Marketing: Contemporary Issues. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2011. Print. Jefkins, Frank W, and Daniel L. Yadin. Advertising. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2000. Print. Riggs, Thomas. Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2007. Print. Tadajewski, Mark, and Douglas T. Brownlie. Critical Marketing: Contemporary Issues in Marketing. Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2008. Print. Tomasko, Robert M. Bigger Isn't Always Better: The New Mindset for Real Business Growth. New York, N.Y: AMACOM, 2006. Print. Read More