”Face Your Ghosts” is a 2-minute film who seeks an emotional connection, raising the flag of courage to mitigate Gen Z’s anxiety in the face of the negative connotations of failure. We portray in everyday situations, in a funny, original and unexpected way, their fear of failing through ghosts that stalk them, paralyze them and try to convince them of their inability to face challenges.

Thus, Doritos empowers them to be authentic, pursuing what they want with a BOLD attitude, without fear of social judgment and stumbling along the way; because worse than failing, is never having tried.

In Mexico, Gen Z builds their identity collectively: inspiring, motivating and accompanying others but in the same way they feel pressure from their peers, they need to be reaffirmed and belong, so they are aware of what their peers may think of them and public scrutiny.

For 10 years, the brand has built "Doritos, For The BOLD," a statement that encourages young people to dare to pursue what they want with courage and tenacity. However, it understood that the main factor that stops its audience (the centennials), is the fear of failing and the social judgment in the face of it.

It was crucial for Doritos, an icon of inspiration and boldness, to attack this tension. Thus, during 2021 and 2022 under the concept “Dare to fail”, the brand redefined failure.

For the evolution of 2023, the opportunity of the campaign was to build a deeper and more meaningful emotional relationship with the target, and to increase the affinity and consideration of the brand. The challenge was to make Doritos the main ingredient in the story that gives young people the confidence to go for what they want.

Who isn't afraid of failing? Although it’s a concern of all generations, Gen Z is one of the most concerned about this. Through online surveys and interviews, we discovered the most common fears of centennials: becoming a meme, demonstrating their talents in public, being bored, etc. These internal and external pressures revealed to us the right insight to conquer them: "I want to be bold to get where I want to be, but the fear of failing doesn't let me move forward."

To liberate them we create a new paradigm: Failure as an opportunity to move forward and the truly brave are those who are willing to fail and learn in the attempt. Thus, we position Doritos as the companion in the journey of this generation. Our next challenge was to find the right creative resource to capture those fears in an innovative, funny and differentiated way for the campaign.

Under the concept: Face your ghosts, this film shows the daily challenges and fears of Gen Z, portraying them as ghosts that haunt them, stop them and generate insecurity: the ghost of rejection, of null talent or of unfollow.

Doritos empowers them to go for what they really want, so instead of being overwhelmed by failure, they chase away their inner ghost, laugh and move on.

Reinforcing the positioning of the brand (For the bold) and communication platform (Failing is for the brave)

An integrated campaign was designed in the main touchpoints of GenZ, with a strong deployment on digital platforms. In addition to the film, short videos of 6, 15 and 20 seconds were promoted, understanding the nature of fast consumption on social media, where the brand statement was shown from the first seconds.

Stories and pieces were created with situations that were easy for the audience to identify, capturing their most common ghosts. This is how several anecdotes were shared by the young people themselves, who realized that they could take their mistakes more lightly and even with a certain humor.

The audience considered that the concept "Face your ghosts" is aligned with the personality of Doritos: a young, fun, creative brand, with intense emotions and current speeches.

The creative resource of ghosts generated identification as it captures the reality of the fears they face: "Ghosts are very Doritos, they represent what we don't see but that paralyzes", "Ghosts are what we all feel, even if we don't want to, but in a fun and relaxed way".

In addition, they appreciated that a brand talked about it, as they assure that this speech is something that "is not seen and is very different from social media perfection”.

With just one month of campaign, we have achieved:

+472M Impressions.

+70M Reach.

+30M Views.

92% VTR (+67% vs Benchmark)

$0.03 CPV (vs 33% benchmark PMF)

+4.9K Comments

+194K Social Media Interactions.

83% Positive sentiment.