Lay’s has two hot potatoes for the upcoming Super Bowl.
Today, the company confirmed to ADWEEK that it will have two ads in the upcoming Big Game, with one spotlighting the company’s local farmers and another featuring a fan activation that’ll deliver free chips to thousands.
“This is a big year for Lay’s. We’re relaunching our brand, and we decided to go in a big way. It’s not only on the campaign in the Super Bowl, but we are doing a complete rebranding,” Hernán Tantardini, CMO, PepsiCo Foods US, told ADWEEK. “So for the first time, we’re going to do two different spots.”
The first ad, “The Last Harvest,” a 60-second tear-jerker airing in the first half of the game, takes the baton from last year’s “The Little Farmer,” spotlighting the farmers who bring Lay’s potato chips to life.
“We’re highlighting the real stars of our brand that are our celebrities, the farmers,” Tantardini said. “We want to make them the celebrities of this Big Game.”
Like “The Little Farmer,” the ad is inspired by a real-life story of farmers who work with Lay’s. In this case, it’s the Neumiller Farms in Illinois, a third-generation potato and vegetable farm now run by father and daughter team of Tom Neumiller and Katie Flomin. The ad—directed by Academy Award-winner Taika Waititi and set to the song “Somewhere Only We Know”—focuses on the farm passing through generations.
It’s a theme that extends beyond the Super Bowl for the company, with PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation planning to invest more than $1 million in the United States over the next two years to support the next generation of farmers.
The second ad, “The Lay’s Challenge,” is a 30-second spot airing sometime after “The Last Harvest,” in which Lay’s asks fans to scan a QR code to receive the freshest bag of Lay’s chips they’ve ever had.
Overall, the company is set to give away 100,000 bags of chips, delivering them to viewers’ doors—from potato to chip in 72 hours or less. And if they’re late, the customers can receive a bag of Lay’s each month for a year, according to Tantardini.
The ad will be revealed during the game, but you can see the teaser here:
“The big thing is it’s going to be across America. No matter where that order is going to be placed from, we are committed to delivering to almost every single place in America,” Tantardini said, noting that the company was lining up farms to work with on the stunt, with consumers even learning about the specific farm their chips come from.
In addition, Lay’s is planning to have fun surprises on the way as it delivers its chips, with Tantardini saying even he may be delivering a bag.
“It’s not a one-month push. This is a multi-year plan. And beyond this plan, this is also a super sport year. So American football is the No. 1 sport in America, but it’s also soccer arriving to the U.S. later on the year, and we’re going to be the sponsors of the FIFA World Cup,” Tantardini said. “So expect more from this team for those special moments of the year.”
