Lay’s

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.