Fight For The Flavor
Read the story- Brand
- Doritos
- Year
- 2007
- Objective
- Sales
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- CP+B
Objective
Doritos was rolling two new flavors — Smokin' Cheddar BBQ and Wild White Nacho — into limited-time national release and wanted the audience, not the brand, to decide which one earned a permanent spot on the shelf. Continuing the "fans run the brand" line it had opened with Crash the Super Bowl, Frito-Lay turned that decision into a public vote designed to drive trial of both flavors and pull traffic to its own branded hub rather than rely on paid media alone.
Solution
On snackstrongproductions.com, visitors picked a side — Smokin' Cheddar BBQ or Wild White Nacho — and built a "tale of the tape" card for their fighter before stepping into the ring. From there they were matched live against another visitor backing the rival flavor and fought it out in real time; winning a match was how you cast your vote, since the flavor that won more fights was the one that stayed on shelves. The site carried the same stop-motion brawl look as the TV spot, and matches also ran as branded video segments on Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, and Heavy.com, alongside in-store displays and on-pack messaging pointing back to the site.
Results
Over 300,000 unique games played in the first month.
- 1
A TV and online spot shows two Doritos bags, Smokin' Cheddar BBQ and Wild White Nacho, brawling in a stop-motion underground fight, and sends viewers to snackstrongproductions.com, Doritos' fictional studio-lot hub, to open the Fight for the Flavor section.
- 2
The player picks a side, Smokin' Cheddar BBQ or Wild White Nacho, casting a vote for which flavor stays on store shelves and which gets discontinued.
- 3
The player builds a tale-of-the-tape fighter card for the chosen flavor, shown before each match.
- 4
The core loop is a real-time one-on-one multiplayer fight against another site visitor who has picked the rival flavor.
- 5
Players can back their flavor beyond the site, as the same stop-motion fight footage runs in branded ad blocks on Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, and Heavy.com.
- 6
Voting closes on May 25, 2007, and the result plays out on store shelves: Smokin' Cheddar BBQ wins and stays in the lineup, while Wild White Nacho is pulled from production.
