Doritos is very new in its journey in India and was not associated with bold flavours. To start building on our flavours, we went after the largest and fastest expanding flavour bucket in India- Spice.

Indians take their spice very seriously, putting the country on top for spice consumption globally. Not only this, 41% Indians are seeking even hotter flavors. We realised the opportunity was fertile for Doritos to bring the iconic Flamin’ Hot to India- a globally winning flavour which suits the spice taste palate of India perfectly. As the trademark was unavailable, Flamin’ Hot had to be renamed to Sizzlin’ Hot- thus robbing Doritos of Flamin’ Hot’s existing equity. So, we had to position the chip afresh in the Indian market.

The brief? We had to launch Doritos Sizzlin’ Hot by bringing alive its heat and product superiority in the Indian market.

Given Indian roots of spice, local players had an edge over us. We had to go local-out and directly compete with not just branded players but regional hot snacks as well.

So, we decided to leverage both, India’s biggest and, micro influencers for the first ever influencer campaign where we paid influencers to NOT eat our chip.

To depict Sizzlin’ Hot’s high heat intensity, we asked our influencers to ‘cheat the heat’ by just pretending to eat Sizzlin’ Hot- subliminally challenging India’s spice limit by positioning Sizzlin’ Hot as too hot for Indians.

India was quick to catch influencers cheating by pretending to eat the chip in their reviews. They not only called them out on their inability to face the heat but also rushed to get their own Sizzlin’ Hot to try the chip and see whether it was indeed so hot that Indians had to cheat the heat.

Launching a hot chip in a country that loves spice. Sounds easy, right? But the familiarity of spice in India itself became our challenge.

Indians love spice so much that they ask street vendors to make already spicy snacks “extra spicy”; drink spicy water after savory snacks; add masalas to global cuisines to cater to their spice palate. A hot snack is neither special nor new in India. They are so ubiquitous, that every local shop has tons of spicy snacks available at different spice levels.

With progressively hot snacks available at every street corner of the country, how do you convince Indians to try Sizzlin’ Hot? We had to break into the spice category by indexing on Sizzlin’ Hot’s disruptive heat levels.

Our strategy was simple- to make Indians believe that Sizzlin’ Hot was not just another hot chip in the Indian market.

Given Indian roots of spice, local players had an edge over us. We had to go local-out and directly compete with not just branded players but local hot snacks as well.

So, we decided to leverage both, India’s biggest and, micro influencers for the first ever influencer campaign where we paid influencers to NOT eat our chip.

To depict Sizzlin’ Hot’s high heat intensity, we asked our influencers to ‘cheat the heat’ by just pretending to eat Sizzlin’ Hot- subliminally challenging India’s spice limit by positioning Sizzlin’ Hot as too hot for Indians.

India was quick to catch influencers cheating by pretending to eat the chip in their reviews. They not only called them out on their inability to face the heat but also rushed to get their own Sizzlin’ Hot to try the chip and see whether it was indeed so hot that Indians had to cheat the heat.

By showing India that Sizzlin’ Hot wasn’t everyone’s cup of heat, we got Indians to rush to get their own Sizzlin’ Hot, giving the snack a fiery launch that set all records on fire- and the best ever for Doritos in India.

Our Influencer campaign saw over 3Mn engagement; greater than any branded partnership the influencers had done before. With over 19Mn reach and +2Mn views, Sizzlin’ Hot became the talk of the town. This resulted in Doritos Sizzlin’ Hot gaining 7.2% market share in just 6 months of launch. It even contributed 22% mix to core in just 3 months vs industry standard of 10%. Not only this, with 58% total awareness and +140% volume vs plan, Sizzlin’ Hot surpassed all targets.