The following idea is based on a very common social behavior in Mexico: Spicy food invites you to try it. But, if it is really spicy, then it also invites you to curse. One of the typical profanities is “Vete a la chingada”, which can translate in English like: “Go to hell”. But, as we learned, La Chingada is also a town in Mexico. Amazing, right? So, making use of this curious observation, we travelled all the way to La Chingada and invited its citizens to try the spicy products of the Xtra Flamin Hot platform. And with all the

Pepsico’s platform of extra spicy flavors, Xtra Flamin Hot, was running its second and successful equity campaign in Mexico. The challenge was to continue growing in brand preference, in a market that offers multiple options in the category. The previous campaign, worked around the typical behavior of people cursing when they eat something very spicy, and showed excellent results in terms of affinity and engagement. So, to build consistency and claiming ownership of that territory, we now had to work on a brand experience around the Xtra Flamin Hot snacks, highlighting the appetizing and pungent attributes of the product, while reinforcing its connection with the Mexican consumer, with objectives of engagement and trial.

Xtra Flamin Hot’s previous campaign was anchored in a strong social behaviour all over Mexico: whenever people eat something very spicy, they inevitably curse. That campaign really resonated among the intense flavors consumers and Mexicans in general and had excellent results in terms of relevance and engagement. So, capitalize this previous effort and really claim ownership of that creative territory, we decided to link this activation to the previous campaign. But with a stronger objective of trial. This way, we claimed that since our last campaign so many people tried our products and sent us to “La Chingada” that, this year we decided to actually go all the way there and invite citizens of that town to try them and test their pungency. Daring new consumers, all over Mexico to try them too.

In Mexico there is a peculiar town that bears the name of “La Chingada”.Which is casually, the most used profanity in the country when someone eats something truly spicy. “Vete a la Chingada”, which could translate like “Go to Hell” in English. So, to demonstrate the high level of spiciness of the Xtra Flamin Hot snacks platform, we went to that town and documented real citizens, testing the pungency of our snacks. Proving, once again, that they are so spicy, that the people there also exclaim the most used profanity in Mexico: “Vete a la Chingada!”

Implementation: The activation ran for 3 days in the town of La Chingada. During these days, the different Xtra Flamin' Hot products were tested among the inhabitants of the village. A production crew, documented the different reactions and edited a film content to spread along social media for the rest of the Mexican consumers to see and enjoy.

Timeline: March 2023.

Placement: The activation took place in "La Chingada" municipality of Perote, state of Veracruz, Mexico. The film content was then placed in Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

“La chingada” is a digital campaign that will be advertise in different digital networks such as Youtube (51% of total investment mix), Facebook (28%), Twitter (17%) and Instagram (4%) that will allow Flamin’ Hot to reach 50,086,148 unique users. The digital campaign plans to achieve 199,988,584 impacts and 18,800,060 views.

In Mexico, it is very common for people to curse when they eat something really spicy. One of the most used ones is: “Vete a la chingada”. Something like “Go to hell”, in English. But, as we came to know with this campaign, “La Chingada” is not only a profanity used in this country, but also a small town. A picturesque place where, as in the rest of Mexico, fans of spicy food live. People who curse when they try something really spicy…like Xtra Flamin Hot snacks.

One of Mexico’s food signature attributes is spicy flavor. It is part of their culture, tradition, and pride. This makes pungency a very high standard when creating a spicy product. In this context, Pepsico’s Xtra Flamin Hot platform, wants to own the main role in the category, with products so hot that make their consumers curse inevitably when they try them. “Go to la Chingada” is the most common profanity when this happens. So, that is precisely where we went to demonstrate the high pungency of our line: to the town of La Chingada.