Snacking and gaming go together, but the sound of loud crunching in a gamer’s headphones is viewed as antisocial. Doritos had to give gamers a solution to this problem and communicate this ground-breaking activation inside the media of the gaming world.

Doritos is the most popular snack brand for gamers and can therefore legitimately talk to this community. The technology behind the Silent Doritos Crunch Cancellation software and the campaign messaging was designed to appeal to gamers and be sympathetic to their situation.

Using social media, gaming influencers and Twitch and other gaming platforms also helped ensure credibility.

Globally, both gaming and snacking continue to grow and, in the UK alone, gaming occasions involving snacking has risen by over 40% in the last two years. And the number one snack brand of choice for gamers is Doritos. Gamers, contrary to the ‘loner’ cliché, are a social bunch. In fact, 74% of gamers claim that socialising is their main motivation to log on, hence the huge popularity of multiplayer games.

Trouble is, with everyone playing with their mates and eating Doritos in the microphone, squads get distracted by the brand’s iconic crunch. Friends get annoyed with each other. A warning about an impending ‘snipe’ gets crunched over. Some of them might even lose the game because of the incessant munching and rage quit.

86% of gamers love to snack while gaming, but it isn’t a perfect marriage. So, something needed to be done.

Forums are full of complaints about loud snacking. In fact, two out of three gamers ranked crisps as the worst noise they could hear. And snacking irritation is a global issue. In the UK, 46% of gamers dislike the sound of others eating. And in the US, 30% of gamers say that other players crunching limits their ability to play well.

Doritos is deeply embedded with gamers, so we were perfectly placed to tackle this crunchy problem. And we wanted gamers to finally be able to enjoy the snack they love most, without causing irritation or disruption.

Doritos is the number one snack brand for gamers worldwide. Which is a privilege. But there’s a problem. Our much-loved crunch disrupts and annoys other gamers subjected to the noise in their microphone.

So, instead of regarding this issue as an inescapable by-product of Doritos popularity, we decided to pivot and turn this consumer pain point into a marketing opportunity. We also wanted to create top of mind awareness for the brand and improve both the gaming and snacking experience in one stroke.

Doritos believes in being bold, so we shined a spotlight on our key selling point, our iconic crunch, and used it to start a conversation about a huge gaming bugbear. In essence, we turned our one weakness into a strength. By creating technology that solved a category problem, we not only appealed to gamers, but we also secured more loyalty and credibility within the gaming community.

Gamers love to snack. And Doritos is their number one choice. But our bold crunch and gaming don’t mix. In fact, two out of three gamers ranked crisps as the worst noise they could hear in their headphones. In the UK, 46% of gamers dislike the sound of others eating. And in the US, 30% of gamers say that other players crunching hampers their ability to play well. Our solution?

Doritos Silent. Same Crunch. No sound.

Doritos Silent is the world’s first AI augmented snack that removes every Doritos crunch from every game.

PC gamers download the Crunch Cancellation Software. Trained on over 5,000 Doritos crunch noises, the AI tech separates the audio of someone’s voice from the distinctive crunch of a Dorito, then cancels all that munching in real-time. So, no more rage quits, no more distraction. Just gaming and snacking, the way it was meant to be.

Gaming sessions last, on average, three to six hours. Gamers need a lot of fuel to keep going and Doritos is their favourite snack. However, research showed, amongst gamers, two out of three ranked crisps as the worst noise they could hear. Our brand strategy is to be an ally to gamers. We needed to find a way to do that, even when our product was the problem.

Given our audience and their beloved PCs, it was natural that tech was the solution. The crunch-cancellation software also needed to be easy to install – speed, small download sizes and a seamless gaming experience were critical to a successful roll out.

The campaign needed to deliver on the brand promise of bold expression and resonate with gamers. Following a provocative tease campaign, we needed to reinforce our credibility with gamers. So, we partnered with Twitch, GamingBible and gaming journalists.

In the first week, we launched our tease phase, using an arresting Doritos ‘chip in an ear’ visual as a metaphor for our Doritos Silent Crunch. This campaign rolled out in four high-footfall OOH locations. Our assets wrapped a commuter press title and were pushed out on social. Our seemingly ‘impossible’ product created a media frenzy with a national breakfast show discussing the campaign for nearly five minutes.

In the next four weeks, we revealed Doritos Crunch Cancellation software and saw thousands of downloads from our Doritos.co.uk/silent site. Using Twitch streamers and other gaming creators to demo the tech on their live streams, we showed our tech indisputably worked, generating positive organic reviews across the gaming community. After launching in the UK, the campaign was rolled out to the US, Spain, Brazil and other markets.

The buzz generated by the campaign enjoyed 3.2bn earned reach, our biggest global Doritos gaming campaign ever. It received over 250 pieces of coverage, created a +76% uplift in on-target brand impressions and had over 200K organic social engagements. Doritos also recorded a +$50m sales growth.

And the results amongst the gaming community were equally impressive. Interest in the Crunch Cancellation software drove more than 1.8m website hits to find out more and generated over 15K downloads in the first few weeks. And our Twitch Doritos emote was spammed more than 5.3m times!

The campaign drove unprecedented talkability and global PR for the brand, driving commercial success and top of mind awareness. So not only did we enhance the gaming and snacking experience, but we also boldly silenced our biggest asset and by doing so, solved a pain point for consumers that succeeded in making our iconic crunch even louder.