Doritos Jacked are more than just another flavour innovation, they’re 40% bigger, bolder and thicker than regular Doritos. The challenge for Capital C was to create awareness, drive trial and multiply the client’s marketing dollars. The solution was to throw out the marketing bible and instead of launching Doritos Jacked, hijack them, taking them away to build unprecedented demand. Or rather, the Micro Munchers Association of Canada did the hijacking because of the brand’s insensitivity in creating a chip so big they couldn’t enjoy it.
The idea spawned from two insights. First, that iconic brands like Doritos can create passion and interest with their consumers when a new product is scarce, and second, that Doritos is deeply rooted in gaming and gamer culture.
An Alternate Reality Game (or ARG) was the best vehicle to create an engaging narrative for the brand’s gamer fans, and the blurring of the digital and real worlds meant that even though the game was fictional, it would have real consequences.
The Micro Munchers Association of Canada (MMAC) was created as the story’s antagonist – a mysterious group whose sole purpose is to promote and celebrate their lifestyle preference of only eating “micro foods.” The conflict would occur when the bigger, bolder, thicker JACKED chips would accidentally launch on the inaugural Micro Muncher Appreciation Day and the MMAC would take this as a direct slight.
To kick off the campaign, a page on Facebook was launched, teasing a pre-launch promotion for Doritos JACKED with a limited batch of pre-release bags of chips to win and the chance to win a Mini Cooper Countryman (a “Jacked” Mini). On April 9, the Facebook page was then taken over by the MMAC with a video showing the Mini Cooper Countryman being hijacked with all the chips inside and a list of demands that the Doritos community had to collectively meet to earn enough “Compassion Points” to release bags of Doritos JACKED and clues to the Mini Cooper’s location.
Every week, two new demands were given, tasking fans to play a simple flash game like NinJACKED, where the player sliced the JACKED chips down to micro-friendly size and engaged in an edutainment tool that promoted “oral sensitivity.”
After the first week, the MMAC rewarded Doritos fans by setting up a giant multi-player projection of their JACKEDeroids game to engage passersby. The sampling team also released 300 bags of JACKED and gave out 250 JACKED t-shirts. Once the second week’s demands were met, the MMAC gave the remaining JACKED bags to eight “hardcore” fans at campuses across the country and were challenged to distribute the product samples in the most fun and creative way possible, delivering on the bigger, bolder, thicker product attributes.
Once the three weeks were over and all the demands had been met, the MMAC released the final clue to the Mini Cooper’s location and fans had to triangulate the car’s position in a Google Maps mash-up, discovering its image hidden on the streets of Tiny, Ontario – the Micro Munchers’ hometown.
The story ended with everyone getting what they wanted – the MMAC got the awareness and respect they desired, Doritos fanatics got to try the JACKED chips before anyone else in Canada, one lucky winner got a brand new Mini Cooper Countryman and Doritos Canada’s gamble on an untested model of engagement paid off.
While Doritos has over 90% of market share, they also compete with macro-snack in general for share. Not only did the campaign generate awareness of the new JACKED product with over 75% of the Doritos community and grow the Facebook fan base by over 30,000 new fans, the brand successfully engaged over 40,000 of its most passionate consumers for an average of 8.5 minutes in the Facebook app. Sales were also jacked up by 253 over index to plan in the first five weeks, proving that a fictional game can produce real-world results.