Marketing In The News

Lays using NFL soil to grow its potatoes? 

Although I am not huge into watching sports myself, I know the U.S as a whole is obsessed with football. The Super Bowl is a bigger deal than Thanksgiving or Easter in some households. I have specific memories growing up of my mom sitting on the couch on Super Bowl Sunday, eyes glued to the TV. Regardless of where you are in the United States, the Superbowl is known. Ads played in-between the games can be millions of dollars for only several seconds. Brands pay this because of the sheer volume of people who tune in to watch the super bowl every year. I think this ad Lays Chips recently released is absolutely genius. Basically lays recently released an ad stating that you could win a bag of potatoes chips grown with the soil of your favorite football team's fields soil. This announcement comes after lays has been absent from super bowl ads for 17 years and they certainly have made a huge comeback. Some of the main points include the fact that lays is including every team that played this year, allowing any fan to get in on the hype, they also tried something new, as this has never been down before, as well as that the bags available are very very limited. Only 200 bags were made for each team. Something else to note is that the chances of winning are not increased simply by buying more bags, it revolves around social media presence and hashtags. In terms of modern marketing, they checked every box. Online and social media will spread the news, which increases to talk surrounding lays, they also made the chips very specific yet broad at the same time and can apply to just about any football fan no matter the team you root for. A brief explanation of Lays chips new ad can be found on Food and Wine.com or on Lay's website. 

    What lays is doing is creating something extremely relevant that will be spread and marketed by the people themselves. The value proposition is literally potatoes grow from the soil of your favorite team's field which makes it unique and something that's never been done before. This new sales strategy will likely be very effective in spreading Lay's name and therefore relevancy and product demand.  Although the marketing technique applies to a specific buyer persona, due to the large social media coverage. It will also likely reach a vast majority outside of the specific buyer persona because many of us spend time on social media every day. The technique used is nothing but good, they targeted niche buyers who will spread the news through social media excitement to people outside of the general buyer population. Spreading the name Lays and reminding consumers of the legendary chips once more. Besides all of the amazing feedback I have for the Lays marketing team If I were to change anything, I might consider producing more bags for specific teams in the final lineup or creating bags in-store with the marketing scheme on it and the specifics of how to enter. 

    Something I learned was how little new marketing there is, and how rare the words are "never been done before" are in terms of something wildly popular and well know such as the brand Lays Chips.