“Do us a flavor”: engaging the layperson in choosing Lay’s Chips flavors

Posted on

Since 2012, Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo, has been running an annual crowdsourcing campaign to determine new flavors for its Lay’s brand potato chips. Executives hoped to achieve a 3% bump in revenue from the campaign in its first year, but they achieved nearly 12%. Has PepsiCo cracked the code to engaging millennials in their (remarkably unhealthy) chips brand? If so, can they transfer these learnings to other snack food brands? And should they?