The idea of a world-famous sports personality coming to your door to watch a game is one that fans all around the world dream of. It is also one that PepsiCo may make a reality through its “No Lays No Game” campaign, which the brand’s most senior marketer believes has a core concept that could run for years.
The aim of the international campaign is to promote the notion that Lays chips help make watching soccer better.
For the second phase of the promotion around Lays’ tie-in with the men’s and women’s UEFA Champion’s League (UCL) soccer tournaments, the campaign ad will feature the World Cup-winning captain of Argentina and the winner of this year’s FIFA’s Player of the Year award, Lionel Messi.
In the film, Messi—who has promoted Lays and other PepsiCo products such as Gatorade and Pepsi No Sugar/Pepsi Max internationally—appears at a soccer fan’s front door with a camera crew in tow to watch a game of soccer. When he spots that they don’t have Lays, he goes to their neighbors and hangs out with them instead, as they do have a bag. Even the dog is upset.
It has been created by Mexican creative agency Slap and builds from the first spot released in February ahead of the latest round of the UCL. That saw former Barcelona, Arsenal and France striker Thierry Henry go to several people’s houses, offering to watch the game with them, but only if they could produce a pack of Lays from around the house.
Playing over both spots is the catchy meme “No Lays No Game” to the familiar tune of “All By Myself.”
There is a difference between the formats of the two films due to having less time available with Messi. That meant turning to a studio shoot to get the most from the Argentinian superstar and the brand’s chief marketer, the newly promoted global vp of Lay’s Brand at PepsiCo, Ciara Dilley, is hopeful that the core campaign idea will run around the world.
“You have to be brave and believe in something like this,” explained Dilley. “It’s something that is really hard to test and research as a lot of it is down to how things come off on the day, but we did some consumer research, and we got really good feedback. When we started showing it internally, though, everybody got it.”
In the span of a week, the Henry ad had amassed over 1.5 million views on YouTube alone.
Teaser videos for the new spot featuring Messi have also been released in advance through the brand’s Instagram channel.
Alongside the Lays social media and YouTube channels, Messi will share it with his millions of followers. Paid social will also be placed behind it, such is the confidence in the campaign.
Dilley described Lays as “everybody’s brand,” and the campaign being one that aims to be “all-encompassing” and for all ages. She also believes that its core concept is one that everyone can empathize with across various countries such as Spain, France, Poland, the U.S., Saudi Arabia and in Turkey, where the final will be held June 10.
“I don’t think in our years, we’ve ever done ‘live-action, in the moment,’ and we think we have hit on a genius campaign with ‘No Lays No Game.’ We’ve got years of ideas coming through when it comes to the personalities you could use and the characters you could work with. There is just so much opportunity to bring it to life,” added Dilley.
Every market will be different in execution, with local soccer stars set to arrive on people’s doorsteps looking for their Lays or the hosting of sweepstakes tied to winning tickets to the UCL Finals.
Special limited-edition edition bags featuring football greats such as Messi will also be released to tie in with the UCL, available in the U.S., South Africa, Poland and other nations during the course of the tournaments.
