How do you shake up a branded, consumer-generated contest to shatter U.S. records for consumer, media and retail response? You let PR take the reigns for the first two weeks, creating a pop-culture moment that ignites a craze to create the next Lay’s potato chip flavor.

The Lay’s brand knows consumers everywhere love to name new chip flavors; the brand’s “Do Us A Flavor” contest has produced solid engagement and sales in many countries. But when it came to the U.S., Lay’s #1 sales market, expectations soared. We needed to smash all-time brand records on every level.

So we didn’t just offer prize money; we put up a million bucks and added a twist: take the money or 1% of sales revenues. We didn’t just invite consumers with ads to name a flavor or enter at retail; our integrated team created a Facebook app that let entrants virtually concoct their flavor, design their own Lay’s bag, and enter ‘Flavor Showdowns.” We even replaced Facebook’s “Like” button with an “I’d Eat That” button.

A contest announcement? How about a giant pop-up store in New York’s Times Square, where thousands mingled with celebrity judges, sampled exotic Lay’s flavors, and entered the contest instantly using our app and the iPads that lined the wall.

Within 10 days, PR generated 1.26 billion impressions and a 12% weekly sales increase. Old records fell fast. We’ve now logged 3.8 million flavor submissions and 3.7 billion impressions in the most successful activation program in Frito-Lay’s global history

Before launch, we paired two food celebrities popular with millennials –actress and restaurateur Eva Longoria and celebrity chef Michael Symon -- as spokespeople and judges. And we chose America’s cultural melting pot of flavors, New York’s Times Square, where we built a giant Lay’s pop-up store for the launch.

Inside the pop-up store, we enticed people to taste Lay’s flavors from around the country. Once inspired by these flavors, they could use the iPads we had on-hand to quickly – within one minute – create and share their own flavor via a Facebook app we had built. The app let them show off their new flavor with an image of their own personalized Lay’s bag complete with customized food photography. On our Facebook timeline, we even offered inspirational videos from Michael and Eva, and ingredient pairings and other flavor idea starters. With their completed flavor, contestants could compete in “Flavor Showdowns.” We even added an “I’d Eat That” button to our Facebook page.

Within days of launch, PR had generated 1,419 stories and 1.26 billion impressions – including cover stories in The New York Times, USA Today, Yahoo.com and PopSugar.com. Two thirds of coverage was in targeted outlets, with 56% directing consumers to the brand’s Facebook page and including call-to-action messaging.

Launch week saw 100,000 contest submissions, and we logged nearly 3.8 million submissions by the time submissions closed (a global campaign record). In the first 6 weeks, we had a total of 1,174,078 app installs, and Facebook likes jumped by 732,718.

What’s more, sales increased 12% in the program’s first week (over the comparable 2011 week), double the original goal of 6%. By week 5, Lay’s saw a $22 million sales increase, making it the most successful sales period for the brand in 2012.

Do Us A Flavor is the most successful integrated campaign in Lay’s history. And the winner has yet to be announced.