Lay's gets Instagram smiling with influencer campaign crafted by Edelman

A Smile here and a smile there,

Painting smiles everywhere,

With myriad moods and a pool of emotions,

Breaking all barriers, sparking a million conversations!

 

The LAY’S Smile Deke Dekho campaign on Instagram did just that.It also built tremendous value for one of the largest brands in the PepsiCo India portfolio. 

 

Through an earned-centric approach, conceptualised and executed by Edelman India, LAY’S kicked off one of its biggest social media campaigns to-date, based on a simple insight that a smile can lead to connections; and LAY’S brings a smile to people’s faces.

 

The idea: Individually created, personalised LAY’S packs that matched influencers’ smiles with flavour variants.

 

“Pick Up The Pack. Pose. Post”

 

With a campaign launched strategically on World Smile Day, we ‘influenced’ the nation with a simple brief to share their version of LAY’S Smile Deke Dekho on Instagram, resulting in record-breaking numbers for the campaign.

 

Edelman shared personalised LAY’S Smile Deke Dekho packages with over 750 influencers across the country by matching their smiles to the different flavour variants. These bespoke packs of LAY’S instantly grabbed the attention of influencers and their followers and fans with a delightful ‘money-can’t-buy’ experience. 

 

As on date, this campaign has clocked over 185 million impressions and 8.2 million engagements, with 75% of the influencer outreach being completely earned.

 

Inspired by a global campaign, LAY’S Smile packaging was brought to India with a twist: Different flavours, different smiles, different connections. Packs featuring six different smiles corresponding to its six distinct flavour variants. The Joyful Magic Masala smile for real and unfiltered moments.

 

The Whacky Hot ‘n’ Sweet Chilli smile for one’s crazy moments. And more… 

 

The campaign achieved phenomenal success in a matter of hours, leading to a daily average of 8-10 posts of LAY’S fans posing with Smile packs on social media organically even into the 12th week of the campaign. There was also an outpouring of anecdotes and stories about how smileshave transformed moments, with more than 1300 social media features for LAY’S.

 

Edelman also engaged a line-up of popular faces on Instagram, including TV celebrity duo Erica Fernandes and Parth Samthaan, Instagram celebrity Jannat Zubair, and leading content creators Kusha Kapila and Shivesh Bhatia amongst others to spark additional conversations around LAY’S Smile.

 

The campaign’s success was further validated by the organic conversions of leading celebrities and influencers posting with their LAY’S Smile hampers, along with a plethora of memes and consumer posts that the campaign has generated, making LAY’S Smile Deke Dekho a part of popular culture.

 

Speaking about how the campaign was conceptualised, Ashutosh Munshi, Executive Vice President and Head of Brand Practice, Edelman India,said, “A brand today doesn’t belong to a company. It is owned by the community, and by the consumer. To win attention requires fresh ways of conveying a brand story through unexpected means that consider all the senses and lean heavily into human intuition. With LAY’S Smile Deke Dekho, we decided to transform storytelling, both through the medium of a new platform and the message people experienced, but with the product and purpose at the centre. With our bespoke designed packs, wefounda new way for LAY’S to connect and drive human emotion, that got people to care about our campaign and share their smiles. This campaign truly underscores the power of earned-centric creativity and we are delighted with the results it has delivered.”

 

Sharing his thoughts about this campaign, Dilen Gandhi, senior director and category head – foods, PepsiCo India, said, “We believe that for any marketing campaign to be successful, it is imperative for brands to focus on ‘the idea’ as the first and foremost premise. We understand where our audience spends most of their time and thus, digital amplification is of core importance to us. The mega launch of this unique personalised campaign was activated extensively on social media by Edelman India, through one of the largest influencer outreach campaigns, wherein we shared LAY’S Smile Deke Dekho hampers with more than 750 influencers across a host of genres and encouraged these influencers and consumers alike to join the #SmileDekeDekho movement.”

 

The campaign also had actors Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt as brand ambassadors and reaped additional visibility through three unique TVCs featuring the celebrity duo.