Muting the Crunch: Here’s how this brand solved a pain point of many of its target customers!

From the desk of Miles Everson:

Hello!

I’m thrilled to share with you another example of a successful guerrilla marketing campaign.

For those of you who may not know, guerrilla marketing is an unconventional strategy that inspires marketers to interact with audiences in a unique and memorable way.

I am a huge fan of this strategy because it shows there are so many ways to attract an audience’s attention.

Today, we’ll take a deep dive on a digital guerrilla marketing campaign that cleverly took advantage of location services!

Curious to know more?

Keep reading below.

Muting the Crunch: Here’s how this brand solved a pain point of many of its target customers!

Gamers and snacks go hand in hand.

With billions of gamers across the globe spending hours on their favorite games, having something to munch on while they play is almost a necessity.

Most of the time, players go with dishes or snacks that are easy to eat and packed with flavor, and that is why pizza or tortilla chips have become the ideal snack choice for gamers.

This is also why  Doritos, the flavored tortilla chips made by  Frito-Lay, has gained widespread popularity among gamers because of its crispness and savory flavor options.

However, eating the snack during long gaming sessions came with a caveat: Its iconic crunch  sound.

Recognizing this problem in 2023, Doritos came up with a solution that not only dealt with a point, but also attracted attention toward its brand.

An Out-of-the-Box AI-Powered Solution

Even though snacking during gaming sessions is commonplace, the noise made when consuming snacks like Doritos can still lead gamers to get distracted by the munching of the people they are playing with.

According to Doritos’ own research, two out of three gamers ranked crisps as the worst noise they could hear during a gaming session.

This distraction could then lead to negative feelings such as annoyance, or to an action as drastic as rage quitting during a game session.

Simply said, something had to be done…

… and this was where Doritos and its team stepped in!

Eager to turn its weakness into a strength, Doritos and its partner,  Smooth Technology, came up with  Doritos Silent, a piece of noise-cancellation software that obfuscated the sound made when gamers bit into their tortilla chips.

How did this work?

The software separated the audio snippet of someone’s voice from the distinctive crunch sounds made when eating crispy snacks in real time.

This software solution leveraged AI tech that was trained on over 5,000 Doritos crunch noises, so regardless of how a player ate his or her crispy snack, the Doritos Silent software filtered out the noise made by all the crunching.

Following the creation of the software solution in 2023, Doritos partnered with  Twitch  streamers,  GamingBible, and other online personalities to generate hype for the Doritos Silent app.

The result?

The Doritos Silent app enjoyed over 3 billion social media reach, generated over 1.8 million visits for its  website , and helped Doritos achieve over USD 50 million in sales!

Additionally, videos about Doritos Silent earned millions of views on streaming platforms like  YouTube.

Aside from these results, the Doritos Silent app gained citations from prestigious awards-giving bodies like  D&AD,  The Drum Awards, and  Cannes Lions.

These results not only show the effectiveness of the digital guerrilla marketing stunt but also the creativity of it!

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Re-engaging brand loyalists and reaching out to new ones at the same time is very challenging.

However, by diving deep into its target customers and putting a creative spin on solving one of their pain points, Doritos was able to do both at the same time.

By leveraging the insights it had at its disposal and utilizing the latest in technological advancements, Doritos was able to meaningfully and organically interact with its target audience.

So, the next time you plan your next guerrilla marketing campaign, keep what this snack brand did in mind!

Hope you’ve found this week’s guerrilla marketing insight interesting and helpful.

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Stay tuned for next Thursday’s Gorillas of Guerrilla Marketing!

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