Canadians have a strong affinity with Ketchup flavoured potato chips – especially for Doritos Ketchup chips. 2020 marked the sixth straight year of Doritos Ketchup returning to shelves for a three-month window. There’s an annual challenge of disruptively announcing its return and finding a new way to fuel the obsession of Doritos Ketchup fans.A simple strategy was established, entertain Doritos Ketchup fans (Gen Z) to get them buying bags. Key objective was to increase brand affinity as demonstrated through generating earned media and increase sales by 10%.

Our big idea was to connect with the screen-obsessed Gen Z market by entering the video streaming wars. To do this, we created our very own streaming service called Doritos Ketchup Plus. This first of its kind streaming platform was completely dedicated to Doritos Ketchup chips.

By partnering with influencers and creators from around the world, we populated the streaming platform with films inspired by the iconic Doritos Ketchup chip flavour - thus creating the first snack you could stream. To drive sales, we included a built-in function that allowed consumers to order Doritos Ketchup chips right from the streaming platform.

In turn, the streaming platform as a whole created a brand-new media channel and consumption moment for our target.

A simple strategy was established, entertain Doritos Ketchup fans (Gen Z) to get them buying bags. The brand investigated Gen Z’s media consumption, more specifically, the media they consume while snacking. An opportunity was discovered – there’s a shift to watching video content on ad-free video streaming platforms like Netflix or Crave, with a total of 1/3 of Gen Zs watching a streaming service daily. Adding to these rates, the global pandemic resulted in a rise of online video watching. These insights created a bigger opportunity that aligned with Doritos Ketchup’s history of integrating itself in youth culture. It could transform from solely being a chip brand to also becoming a media company by creating its own streaming platform for the Doritos Ketchup obsessed, a brand-new way to enjoy the product they love.

Doritos Ketchup+ launched June 22, 2020, stocked with 21 snackable shows. Unlike other platforms that Doritos Ketchup+ closely resembled, it was free and just like the chips, temporarily available.

The snackable shows on Doritos Ketchup+ covered numerous genres popular among Gen Z. In line with Doritos brand purpose of igniting bold self-expression, the brand partnered with a group of creators and influencers across multiple countries and gave them creative freedom to produce their own Doritos Ketchup inspired shows in accordance with local COVID guidelines. They produced the shows, and also promoted them on their social channels to drive Doritos Ketchup+ viewership.

Campaign launched June 22nd and ran through Sept 6, 2020.

Ten show trailers were created and promoted across digital and social channels alongside an online video to showcase Doritos Ketchup+. To help legitimize Doritos Ketchup+ as a streaming platform, these trailers mimicked other streamers messaging, sonic branding and graphics.

Our Doritos Ketchup+ campaign surpassed key campaign benchmarks over with 182,504 site visits (212% vs projection) while they streamed an unbelievable 43,670 minutes (205% vs projection) of what’s essentially a series of Doritos Ketchup ads. The idea resonated with a mix of major publications and consumers on social media resulting in 15.4 million earned impressions. This obsession with Doritos Ketchup+ extended to Doritos Ketchup. Sales - targets were set pre-COVID and with the disruption to the retail landscape, planned promotional support ads and in-store display was removed. As a result, we relied solely on Doritos Ketchup+, which drove strong sales on its own.