Lay’s Potato Chips
Baked Lay’s Potato Chips | “Antonio and Piggy”
When surveys showed that fat had become the principal health concern of Americans, the words “baked,” “low-fat,” “reduced fat,” and “nonfat” began showing up on snack packaging everywhere. Lay’s developed Baked Lay’s, consisting of potato dough pressed and baked into a “crisp.” Since they had about one-sixth the fat of regular potato chips, the advertising was aimed at women.
In this spot, man-hungry (and always-hungry) Piggy must choose between Calvin Klein underwear model Antonio Sabato Jr. and two new flavors of Baked Lay’s. This ran pre-game on the Super Bowl. (It was followed, ironically and coincidentally, by a commercial for the “other white meat”—pork! ) The best part of this was meeting and working with Frank Oz.
Baked Lay’s accounted for $200 million of Frito-Lay’s estimated sales of $600 million in low- and no-fat snacks that year. Advertising was an important part of the success, but Baked Lay’s was introduced at just the right time, fueled by consumer demand.
Lay’s Potato Chips | “Jabbar and Bird”
After 53 years, regular Lay’s potato chips were literally re-engineered from the ground up. They switched oils, reduced salt, ensured that only the best-looking chips ended up in the bags, and switched to new packaging that was better at keeping the chips crispy and fresh. At the time, some 300 national and local brands competed in a $1.7 billion market. Increasing competition from popcorn, pretzels, and multigrain snacks began eroding sales then, and continues to do so today.
We relaunched the brand’s iconic “Betcha Can’t Eat Just One” campaign with a high-stakes wager between two of basketball’s all-time greats, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Larry Bird. Kareem and the Lakers battled Bird’s Celtics in three memorable NBA Finals, walking away with the championship in two of them. In one game the fiercely competitive pair nearly came to blows.
The stakes were high for the agency, too. This was Lay’s first first new network TV advertising in ten years, and debuted on the eve of the highly competitive summer selling season, when potato chip sales are 20% higher than the rest of the year. Sports marketers declared the commercial a hit, and sales growth for the product was in the double digits that summer.