Dive Brief:

• Frito-Lay brand Lay's is teaming up with NBC competition show "The Voice" and judge John Legend for a campaign integration and digital trivia competition, the company shared with Marketing Dive via press release.
• During this season, which premiered on Feb. 24, Legend will encourage viewers to visit LaysAndTheVoice.com between March 2 and April 17 to answer weekly trivia questions about the show for the chance to win prizes. Viewers must enter an on-pack code in order to participate. The grand prize is a trip to Los Angeles to attend a live taping of "The Voice."
• The campaign was designed to promote new Lay's flavors that debuted earlier in 2020. The brand will reintroduce its Crispy Taco and Wavy Fried Green Tomato flavors for a limited time during the show's 18th season.

Dive Insight:

Lay's integration with "The Voice" is an opportunity to get unique flavors in front of consumers and encourage fans of the popular competition show to try the new offerings. After making a purchase, fans can further engage with Lay's by participating in a sweepstakes that directly appeals to their interest in "The Voice" with an alluring grand prize of seeing it filmed live.

The digital trivia component comes just two weeks after HQ Trivia, a popular mobile game show app, announced it was closing. After an acquisition deal fell through for the app, the company fired its 25 employees and stopped operations, TechCrunch reported. Lay's effort to weave in a similar trivia model suggests that marketers still have a desire to reach consumers in this way despite HQ Trivia's quick rise and fall.

Using "The Voice" to reintroduce limited-time and new flavors offers Lay's an opportunity to differentiate itself from its classic potato chip and test sales performance. By testing flavor varieties around the popular TV show, the Frito-Lay snack brand can monitor sales and use that customer data to develop insights for future product development and marketing campaigns.

Lay's has heavily leaned into interactivity over the past few years by asking fans to "Do Us a Flavor" and suggest new products they'd like to see on store shelves. Those efforts have helped the chip maker develop a range of unlikely flavors such as cappuccino and cheesy garlic bread.