In the US, Doritos is known as an iconic Super Bowl brand, showing up every year with a big, star-studded spot. But we have never specifically advertised to Canadians (and in fact, due to the broadcasting rules, our spots would sometimes not even air there).

We wanted to use the Super Bowl as a pillar advertising moment for Canada, just like we do in the US. We wanted to show Canada that Doritos was a bold, disruptive brand, and use Canadian talent specifically, to differentiate the brand from its American counterpart.

We needed to figure out how to “keep it real” for Canadians and show that Doritos understood their market. And with a fraction of the budget that we’d usually get for a US Super Bowl ad. Social became our way in, using the insight that Canadians don’t get to see the US Super Bowl ads on TV.

The idea was specifically created with the Canadian market in mind. It’s based on a real Canadian insight (or “pain point”) and a fact that everyone in Canada knows: they can’t see the US commercials on the Canadian Super Bowl broadcast.

It’s very common for Canadians to desperately search for the spots online after the game, or to set up a VPN for the sole purpose of watching the ads.

So we decided to take that pain point and turn it into a humorous campaign—as legally as we could. Since Canadian viewers couldn’t see the ads, we would have two comedians watch the ads and reenact them as best as they could, giving random, wild reactions for viewers.

Then, during the game, as the US ads dropped on the American broadcast, we would release our reenactments on social, giving Canadians a glimpse of what they were missing.

Canadians live with FOMO. Since Canada is a smaller market, it usually doesn’t get to have all the buzzworthy brands and experiences that are part of entertainment in the US. There are fewer concerts and live events, fewer brands to choose from and less high-end production content. This FOMO intensifies during the Super Bowl.

The audience insight was landed through research into and social listening of Canadian Gen Z, a generation that lives on their phones and uses them as second screens, especially during live events. The internet is flooded with complaints and comments about not getting the American commercials during the Big Game. It’s a “thing” that no other brand had ever talked about before.

As a long-term advertiser of the Super Bowl, Doritos decided to help, using two famous Canadians comedians, and social platforms that feel natural for the target audience, like TikTok and Instagram.

Since we had no way of knowing what ads would be released before we started filming, we analyzed 10 years of Super Bowl ads, identifying tropes that showed up again and again, like celebrities, car chases and horses selling beer. Then we filmed Gerry and Amrit reacting to a compilation of these tropes.

As the US spots were released before the game, we edited our footage to match—as close as we legally could. And during the game, as the US ads dropped on the American broadcast, Gerry and Amrit started releasing their reenactments on social to coincide with them (with paid promoted posts as well).

We teased the campaign before the game and released a Supercut on Super Bowl Sunday during the Canadian broadcast, driving viewers to watch them all online.

TikTok and Meta were the chosen platforms, since many Canadians search for the ads on second screens.

We managed to engage with consumers across multiple screens during the Super Bowl. And thanks to the involvement of Gerry Dee and Amrit Kaur, Doritos started leading the social conversation, keeping it top of mind throughout the whole game (rather than just one commercial moment).

The Canadian press followed up with overwhelmingly positive reviews, garnering 58+ million impressions and almost 80 million media reach. Narcity named it one of the Top 5 Super Bowl campaigns (competing with the US commercials) and Billboard, in a tongue-in-cheek way, claimed “Doritos Brings Canadians the Super Bowl Ads They’re Missing — Well, Kind Of.” Gerry and Amrit were also interviewed by multiple news outlets, wanting to hear more about the campaign.

Canadians were so stoked, they even started doing their own reenactments on TikTok, continuing our campaign organically. Most importantly, Canadians started seeing Doritos as a brand that truly understands them.