A production company led by 21-year-old Montreal student Ryan Coopersmith has won Frito Lay Canada’s “Become the Doritos Guru” contest.
The contest asked Canadians to name a new flavour of Doritos chips and create a 30-second TV spot for its promotion. The new flavour, which went on sale earlier this year in plain white bags decorated with a black question mark, will now be called “Scream Cheese.”
Coopersmith’s recommendation earned top spot among 2,100 entries with a video depicting a series of everyday conversations wherein one party inexplicably communicates by screaming.
“There are a lot of different situations in the commercial and everyone has a different scene they can identify with,” said Coopersmith. “And it’s loud and fun and grabs your attention right away. It’s funny because people are screaming and exaggerating everyday situations.”
The winning entry in the contest, which began in February, was chosen through online fan voting and beat out four other semi-finalists. Coopersmith and his Boo Ya Pictures won a $25,000 prize for their efforts and will also receive 1% of Canadian sales of the Scream Cheese flavour.
Doritos marketing manager Claudia Calderon said Coopersmith’s entry was a good fit for Doritos’ 13- to 24-year-old target market.
“All of the top five brought something different to the table,” she said. “This particular spot was, as Ryan said, very diverse, somewhat unexpected and really spoke to the Doritos target.”
The Boo Ya Pictures spot aired on MuchMusic and Musiqueplus this past weekend and launches nationally next week. Calderon said the ad will run for three weeks.
She added that the Doritos Scream Cheese flavour, complete with new packaging, hits stores this week.
BBDO Toronto handled core creative duties for the campaign which began in February and partnered with promotional agency Capital C to design the packaging. Proximity Canada oversaw the digital aspects of the campaign including DoritosGuru.ca. Public and media relations will be handled by Fleishman-Hillard, while OMD Canada oversaw all media duties.
The “Become the Doritos Guru” contest generated 30,000 Facebook fans and more than 1.5 million unique visitors to its sponsored YouTube page.
