Frito-Lay Tosses Chips Into Super Bowl

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NEW YORK — Frito-Lay Wednesday unveiled details for a new ad that will tout the crispier taste of Lay’s potato chips. The spot will break on Feb. 1 on CBS during Super Bowl XXXVIII.

The 30-second spot, “Grandparents,” via BBDO, New York, is a humorous look at what can happen when a grandson leaves his grandparents alone with only one bag of Lay’s chips. The ad shows how the “irresistibility of Lay’s drives the couple to unexpected lengths to sink their teeth” into Lay’s. In a surprising turn of events, the one who ends up with the Lay’s realizes he doesn’t have “what it takes” to eat Lay’s.

Frito-Lay spent $98 million on media in 2002 and $107 million through November 2003, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

The “Now even crispier” message will also be called out on Lay’s new packaging, the first change to the brand’s familiar yellow bag since 1996. The effort is part of PepsiCo’s “Power of one” strategy, which attempts to get consumers to associate sister brands Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay, through a special Super Bowl offer that dangles a cash reward for purchasing select products. (Brandweek, Nov. 24).

Frito-Lay said it has increased production of potato and tortilla chips by more than 10 million pounds in the weeks leading up to Super Bowl ” to meet the demand of the millions of people who watch the nation’s No. 1 television event.”

— Staff Report