WOW #6- Tostitos and FOMO

Overview

Tostitos, the snack you expect to see at every Super Bowl, family gathering or casual game night. The chip giant has effectively created a need state for their product: If you're having any kind of gathering, chips and salsa need to be a part of it. All of the brand's past works have pictured the chips in some kind of party setting, reinforcing this idea. Tostitos already has incredible brand recognition, as the country's leading non-flavored tortilla chip, so where do they go from here? In this spot, Tostitos decided to explore a little bit into what the culture surrounding parties, with Jean Claude Van Damme.

Target

Tostitos seems to be reaching a young audience, but not necessarily college students. The parties appear to be for adults who somewhat have their lives together, Mid/late 20's and 30's. I myself didn't know who Mr. Van Damme was before seeing this spot, so I came to believe they were looking for an audience slightly older than me. Additionally, The target for this spot is very clearly for men and women. Each room that Jean Claude travels to has an oddly equal amount of both men and women. Even Van Damme himself dressed up as both genders to drive this point home.

Psychographically they seem to be targeting young working professionals who find themselves with too many things to do and not enough time. This targeting came from the insight that Tostitos got about millennial working professionals.

Insight

Tostitos came upon the realization that millennials are constantly overprogramed. There's always some birthday party to go to, baby/bridal shower to buy presents for or watch party to attend. People are getting exhausted because they feel like they HAVE to go to these events. Why? FOMO aka "Fear of missing out". Tostitos decided to tap into this fear, that if you're not there your friends will have fun without you. scared to not be able to make it to events. Tostitos are the go to gathering chip.

Brand Idea/Positioning

As discussed before, Tostitos is very clearly a party chip. They want their brand to be at the life of the party, the food that you eat with you're friends when you're having a good time.

Objective

With this spot, it's clear that their goal was to playfully encourage consumers to go hang out with their friends more (so they'll buy more Tostitos). They know that because of all of their previous branding, people buy tostitos to go to parties. So how do you increase Tostitos sales? Encourage people to go to/have more parties! How do you do that? Show them what they'll be missing if they don't.

Strengths

I thought this spot was funny, and showed a very relevant understanding of their consumer. Playing off of the fear of missing out hit the nail on the head of what this generation fears.

Weaknesses

After looking through some of their past work, I was upset to find out that pretty much all of their commercials have the same general structure. A party, with someone eating tostitos, going into various different rooms, with an unsettlingly even number of men and women.