Why is this work relevant for Media?

As a foreign snack brand looking to connect with China's giant and diverse population of +200M migrant workers, Lay's needed to find an innovative way to connect with this group on an entertaining and individual level to launch its six new regionally-inspired 2021 flavours. Tapping into the insight that food can instantly trigger memories, Lay’s set out to deliver the taste of home. It did this in partnership with Bytedance, pioneering Douyin's (Tiktok's) first ever immersive short-video documentary series: ‘Find Your Flavour’, also the platform’s first co-created series with a brand.

Background

Every summer, Lay’s releases a new series of flavours. As a part of its 2021 flavour launch, Lay’s wanted to connect the 200 million young Chinese consumers who had moved cities with the taste of home. Through this, Lay's wanted to increase sales and brand awareness. Nowadays, star power alone is not sufficient to entice today’s young Chinese, who prefer content that delivers emotional values. Meanwhile, competition among snack brands had never been more fierce: The demand for Chinese snacks continued to rise under consumers’ growing favouritism for homegrown labels. On the other hand, many global snack brands were also rapidly churning out new flavour ideas to adapt to consumers’ changing taste.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

For its 2021 launch, Lay’s needed to outsmart the competition with innovation, connecting the +200 million young migratory Chinese workers with the taste of home. Tapping into foods ability to trigger personal memories and a warm nostalgia for home, Lay's crafted six unique flavours - Roasted Oysters with Garlic,  Crispy Grilled Fish,  Cumin Lamb, Sichuan Spicy Chicken,  Beer,  and Old Pickle - each inspired by one of China’s different provinces. With 850M active users,  short videos have replaced long videos as the primary entertainment medium in China. Among all age groups, Generation Z have the most pronounced interest in short videos: out of their 48.9-hour monthly average video consumption, 35.1 hours were dedicated to short videos (Source: QuestMobile). With their incredible ability to engage with their audience, KOLs and KOCs tend to be perceived as more trustworthy and relatable than big celebrities, making them an ideal pick for brand ambassadors.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Tapping into the insight that food can instantly trigger memories and that short videos are the hottest medium for Generation Z, Lay’s set out to deliver the taste of home. It did this in partnership with Bytedance, pioneering Douyin's (Tiktok's) first ever immersive short-video documentary series: ‘Find Your Flavour’, which was also the platform’s first-ever co-created content with a brand - specifically targeted to engage China's population of young, migratory workers! It set out to do this via an omni-influencer approach that harnessed celebrities, KOLs and KOCs as the stars of its series, each unique to and wildly popular with the region they represented.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

In the series, each episode saw one of China’s top KOLs journeying home in search of the unvarnished flavours of their region, which uncoincidentally were one of the six new limited-edition Lay’s flavours. While talking about the foods they loved most, each KOL also shared their personal path to success and life ambitions, helping to connect to the audience of migratory youth via content with purpose. On these gastronomic trips, the KOLs were joined by celebrity cameos who fondly recalled their personal anecdotes of local flavours. During each episode on Douyin, viewers were invited to take part in the Lay’s Douyin challenge, ‘Find Your Flavour’, whereby they were asked to share their favourite hometown dishes, along with their life story and ambitions. To promote the challenge, Lay’s partnered with hundreds of KOCs who crafted content on Douyin while on the hunt to find their flavour.

List the results (30% of vote)

Lay’s pioneering ‘Find Your Flavour’ Douyin documentary series was the perfect engagement strategy to target China's 200M young, migratory workers. Not only was the series an industry-first, but its omni-influencer approach that harnessed KOLs, KOCs and celebrities unique to each of their hometown regions was also wildly loved across China with a whopping 4 billion views, which inspired over 600,000 incredible UGC videos via Lay’s Douyin challenge. As a result, despite never having been featured on Douyin's brand voice chart in its history, Lay’s rose to the second place immediately following the series’ launch.