This year, Pepsico has brought about another positioning change in its most successful snack brand- Lays. The brand never really found a sustainable positioning platform ever since it ditched its " No One Can Eat Just One " tagline. The last tagline of the brand was " Be Dillogical " which was introduced in 2009. So for around two years, the brand managers tolerated the positioning.
This year, the brand decided to experiment yet again with the tagline , bringing in the new one - "Pal Banaye Magical " meaning " Making Moments Magical ". The brand is running the new campaign featuring the brand ambassador Saif Ali Khan.
Watch the ad here : Lays Pal Banaye Magical
The ad follows the usual theme of group of friends or protogonist ( disappointed because of cancellation of some event, boredom, etc) and how brands liven their moments. The idea ( theme) is not at all new and has been used by brands across the world. Recently Titan Raaga used similar theme using Katrina Kaif , Tic Tac also used similar theme and Nano has used somewhat similar idea for their new positioning effort. The expectation of something different was not met by Lays in the current campaign.
Regarding the tagline " Pal Banaye Magical " sounds good and the creatives can work on this theme with a variety of stories. But I would say that it never comes anyway near to the brand's original tagline.And these frequent changes in the positioning doesn't augur well for the brand's overall strength.
The brand which started its journey by positioning on taste later moved on to occasion based positioning ( har program ka main food) then moved to a higher attribute like Dillogical and then finally to celebrate friendship and togetherness. How ever in the execution front, the brand was not able to bring in any magic to these concepts.
On the other marketing practices, Lays innovated on its range of flavors using customer co-creation. Through a nationwide campaign , the brand solicited ideas of new flavors from the consumers and was able to create lot of buzz in the market. This move also gave the brand lot of innovative flavors to work upon, engage with the customers and also strengthen one of its core attributes - taste and flavors. The move was the blunt or in other words establish points-of-parity with its competitor - Bingo. ITC's Bingo was highlighting its " variety of flavors " as its USP. Through the co-creation campaign, Lays was able to convince the customers that it is able to innovate on flavors too.
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Lays : No one can eat just one
Brand Update : Lays Dillogical
