Doritos Roulette

Sales: £186.6m (+6.1%)

When it comes to NPD gambles, the stakes don’t get higher than Doritos Roulette, a line launched last April that mixes ultra-spicy chips in with Tangy Cheese flavour.

The odds were stacked in PepsiCo’s favour, and the product became the category’s biggest single-SKU launch of the year. “The key driver is that it offers consumers a fun ‘big night in’ with a spicy twist,” says PepsiCo UK marketing director Thomas Barkholt.

The launch was supported by a TV campaign in the brand’s usual deadpan/surreal style, depicting an actual game of roulette with the snack in a dingy room; when one of the participants is too scared to eat one, he transforms into a chicken. This was backed up with cinema and digital ads later in the year. Roulette helped the brand’s volumes jump 13.4%, though price pressure means value growth has lagged behind this somewhat. It wasn’t entirely responsible, though - Barkholt says sales have risen across the whole flavour range, driven by the brand’s appeal to young consumers.

“There has been a 62% increase of consumers between the age of 16 and 28 buying into the brand in the last two years,” he says. “Its success over the past year has been driven by the new For The Bold global positioning, which appeals to a younger adult audience. We have also seen significant growth in sharing bags.”

For The Bold launched last March with a TV ad depicting a young man made stylish and confident with the power of Doritos, and returns in a new campaign this month.