In the UK less than 10% of Doritos are eaten with a dip. Not so in the USA where more than 50% are consumed in this way. We wanted to get Brits into this habit, not just to grow sales of dips, but also to cement the position of Doritos as the chip for social occasions.

Our investigations into habit formation suggested that gaming could be a very powerful means to achieve this. And one highly appropriate for our 18-34 year old target, who played more than any other age group.

So we created the “Dip Desperado” game and built into it 4 principles of how to create a game that would be both addictive and habit forming (Accelerated feedback cycles , Clear goals and rules of play, A compelling narrative, Tasks that are challenging but achievable).

The game was based on a narrative around a character -Esteban Ortega - a man incredibly adept at flicking tortillas into jars of salsa, hence his nickname, “Dip Desparado” , with consumers challenged to try their own hand at chip-flicking, by playing an addictive and immersive game, available to download for free as a Facebook, Android or iPhone application. They were rewarded with ‘real world’ prizes redeemed with an on-pack code. The bigger your score, the bigger your prize and with 1000 prizes up for grabs each day, there would be real incentive to combine game play with purchase.

Through great story telling on TV and online video we captured people’s imaginations about our new fictional activity.

And it worked;

Dip Desperado achieved over 2 million plays in the first month after launch (versus an average of 25,000).

The game shot into the Apple App Store’s Top 10 Free Games Apps and also ranked No 13 in the store’s Top Free Apps chart.

57,000 hours were spent chip flicking, with each player spending an average of 6 minutes with the brand.

We exceeded the business targets set for the campaign , increasing dip sales by +19% and chip sales by +14.5%.

And, most importantly, we hit our ambitious behaviour changing target of doubling dual consumption of chips and dip from 1 in 15 to 1 in 8.

The campaign delivered an ROI of £1.30 for every £1 spend and an online ROI of £2 ( is one of the highest ever recorded).

A great game can be great for business.