Doritos invites user-generated TV ad

Doritos, the tortilla corn crisp brand owned by PepsiCo, has launched a new online campaign to engage users with an interactive website, user generated content and strong links to social networking sites.

Historically, FMCG brands have been slow to embrace online marketing as they have struggled to deliver a compelling creative message and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Recently, P&G called upon the industry to focus more on delivering return on investment than just the creative wow.

However, recent IAB online ad spend figures showed a 1% rise in total ad spend in 2007 from FMCG brands.

A number of brands have recently announced plans to increase investment in online marketing during 2008, including Becks beer in its appointment of i-level to develop digital campaigns and a number of online media firsts for Cadburys by CMW Interactive.

The Doritos campaign, developed by ad agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, uses eye-catching display advertising to draw users to a microsite.

The display advertising draws on the recent buzz created by the Cadbury’s gorilla TV ad which attracted a number of spoof ads to be published on YouTube.

The ads invite users to develop a new for Doritos for the chance to win a prize.

The microsite, hosted at www.doritos.co.uk, offers a series of options to view a gallary of entrants, watch the previous week’s winners as well as uploading your own videos to the site.

There are also links to each of the major social networking sites, including a Facebook forum, a YouTube channel and stumbleupon.

The site has already attracted over 200 entrants, which is a significant number of people taking the time to film, edit and publish content on the site.

However, I expect a large proportion of people will simply view content rather than actively participate.

While the top prize of £20,000 is certainly a good incentive, for many the big appeal will be for the winning ad to used in a TV and online campaign in June.

This is an innovative and interactive campaign, than puts a great spin on the traditional 30-second TV ad spot. 

And what about the results?

Well the campaign is highly measurable, with Doritos able to track the number of site visitors, dwell time (how long they spent on the site), user interactions in each of the sections and comments posted on social networks.

Personally, I think this is a great away to engage with its audience; in turn promoting the brand and building loyalty.

I am sure we will see many other FMCG brands following suit.

Matthew Finch – read Matthew’s blog

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