A mysterious Twitter account appeared this May with the bio “official Twitter of Doritos® Ontario.” A quick scan of the feed reveals, however, the account is anything but official.
Sample: All Doritos® are created equal under God™, Do whatever feels good. Like Doritos. Do them. and This is a Dorito <|.
Mixing “Weird Twitter”—a branch of web comedy that styles tweets as random, bizarre poetry—and a straight up satire of social marketing, Doritos Ontario is a hit with the likes of the National Post’s Steve Murray and BuzzFeed’s Mike Hayes, who called it his “new favorite weird thing happening on Twitter.”
It’s also a pretty direct shot at Subway Ontario, one of the few regional brand accounts on Twitter. But is it a satire of the state of social marketing, or an undercover marketing scheme targeting the popular weird Twitterati? Doritos Ontario isn’t telling.
Doritos Canada, meanwhile, wasn’t saying much either but Susan Irving, Doritos Canada’s director of marketing, promises the brand hasn’t created a parody of itself.
For now at least, Doritos seems to be demonstrating the social savvy to let someone play with its brand without shutting it down.
Calling Doritos Ontario a “passionate” fan, she says the brand has taken the account in stride but wants consumers to know it’s not an official account, no matter how many times it tweets™ next to her brand’s name. “While imitation is the truest form of flattery, we want our fans to know that @DoritosCanada is the only place where they can get the latest and real news from the Doritos brand,” she says.
Here are a few of our favourite recent tweets from Doritos Ontario:
