This fall Buenos Aires shoppers will have the opportunity to make their own Lay’s potato chips in the store, or so it would seem.
In late October or early November, PepsiCo Argentina and their agency, BBDO, will be unveiling vending machines that appear to make Lay’s potato chips right in front of customers' eyes in the hope of convincing a skeptical public that their chips are made of real potatoes, according to AdAge.
Vending machines will rolled out in supermarkets across the country and will give customers a chance to see the production process up close and personal.
Instead of coins, a customer will drop a potato into the machine and they will then see the potato washed, peeled, cut, cooked, salted, and packed before picking it up at the bottom of the machine.
But things aren’t always what they appear to be.
Consumers won’t actually view the potatoes being cooked inside the machine. Instead they will be viewing a hyper-realistic video of the manufacturing process complete with heater at the bottom door so that the bag feels warm when the shopper receives it.
"We thought this would be a great opportunity to show customers how Lay's are made," said Alfredo Della Savia, brand manager for salty snacks for PepsiCo ConoSur in AdAge. "There were rumors Lay's aren't made from real potatoes, and we're trying to fight that, and show we have no secrets -- it's potatoes, oil and salt."
These rumors, however, are not specific to Argentina. It is a global issue that Frito Lay has been trying to combat for several years now.
The US division of Frito Lay first confronted the gossip that their chips weren’t made of real potatoes back in 2009.
Lay’s Go “All Natural”
Frito Lay made a big push to use all natural ingredients in their products starting in 2008 as an answer to the public’s concern over obesity and general health concerns.
Yet despite the fact that many of their products – Lay’s, SunChips, Tostitos- were made of all natural ingredients, consumers still viewed Frito Lay as a “junk food company” reliant on artificial ingredients.
In 2009 the U.S. division of Frito Lay began to play up the natural angle – that the chips were only made of potatoes, oil and salt - with its “Lay’s Local” campaign. The campaign highlighted the farmers growing those potatoes which would become Lay’s chips and allowed consumers to track where the whole process of making the chips online – from harvest to packaging to delivery.
According to Promo’s 2010Pro Awards – given to the best in promotional marketing – the 2009 US Lay’s Local campaign helped Frito-Lay become Candy and Snack Today's Fastest Growing Consumer Packaged Goods Company in the U.S. And more importantly, the campaign generated a 127% increase in net sales.
A version of this campaign, Lay’s Farmers, was rolled out in Canada in April 2011 and is devoted to celebrating Lay’s Canadian potato farmers and their stories.
The U.S. and Canadian divisions of Frito Lay both chose to tell the story of Lay’s natural ingredients through the people who make them, and I believe it is the human element that makes this campaign so successful. The question is whether the video vending machine will be able to have the same kind of success communicating the natural message in Argentina.
Are consumers convinced?
On the surface, the video vending machine is an incredibly innovative idea. It uses technology in an inventive way to communicate the message that Lay’s potato chips are made out of potatoes, and not only that, but the only other ingredients are oil and salt.
It has already caused some buzz in the advertising world for its inventive use of technology, so in that way it is a success, but will it really change perceptions?
While the use of technology is admirable, in the end advertising is all about the message. And with today’s skeptical consumers roaming the supermarket aisles you have to be very careful how you craft that message.
The whole idea seems conflicted: Frito Lay is trying to show that their chips are made from real potatoes, the vending machine is supposed to support this and yet the demonstration it provides is not even real – it is a fake, a video.
It may turn heads now, but somehow it doesn’t seem the most effective way to change perceptions long term.
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