MAM
Lay’s introduces special ‘@ Home’ packs in new campaign
Mumbai: As people continue to remain indoors in light of the ongoing times, they have made their homes the perfect spaces for work, entertainment, and fun with friends. At the back of this insight, PepsiCo’s potato chips brand Lay’s has introduced special ‘@ Home’ packs to be the perfect companions for its fans in all their in-home experiences. The brand has also unveiled a new TVC featuring Bollywood actor Ishaan Khatter, highlighting the creative idea of ‘Ghar Par Lay’s, Always!’.
The film is set in a relatable home arrangement and features Ishaan enjoying board games with his friends when they ask him if he has Lay’s at home, eventually creating an entertaining frenzy amongst the youngsters. While the actor rushes to the nearby supermarket to pick up the new Lay’s ‘@ Home’ packs, his friends completely ransack Khatter’s apartment looking for their favourite chip pack. The film closes on a light note, with one of the friends remarking “Nice place yaar!” as Khatter and the gang sit together and share a delightful moment over the new Lay’s packs.
Lay’s has always aimed at infusing a sense of joy into consumers’ lives, not only through its delicious flavours, but also through its distinct, innovative offerings. The new ‘@ Home’ packs, which are available in four Lay’s flavours, have been especially curated keeping in mind the uptick in at-home consumption as well as the wide array of moments one experiences at home today, the brand said.
“We at Lay’s continue to be laser-focused on elevating everyday moments in the lives of our consumers. Our latest campaign, ‘Ghar Par Lay’s, Always!’ captures the many in-home moments that people are experiencing today – be it working from home or hanging out with friends,” said PepsiCo India’s senior director, marketing – foods, Anshul Khanna. “Through our first-ever association with Ishaan Khatter – who represents the spirit of the youth today, we aim to deepen our consumer connect through the relatable moments captured in the TVC. We sincerely hope consumers enjoy these newly-launched, special in-home packs and make them a part of their experiences.”
PepsiCo Foods’ WPP Lead – at Wunderman Thompson India, Ritu Nakra added, “Right now, the world is at home. Be it remote working, watching a movie or two, hanging out with friends, weekend outings – we are doing all this and more in the comfort of our own homes. And it’s only fair to make these occasions more joyous and delightful by making India’s most loved snack brand – Lay’s – an integral part of our ‘at home’ lifestyle.”
Speaking about the new TVC, Ishaan said, “Lay’s has been etched in my memory since childhood. It is the go-to snack when hanging out with friends or family & the new ‘@ Home’ packs further solidify that feeling. I hope the fans enjoy the TVC and also ensure that they have ‘Ghar Par Lay’s, Always!’”.
The new Lay’s ‘@ Home’ packs are now available across all leading retail and e-commerce platforms in India.
MAM
The Merit of Madness: How AI is Changing the Game in Advertising
By Ritz Malik, founder, Ritz Media World.
MUMBAI: When it comes to growth in a competitive landscape, a businessman always has to be a firm believer in Darwinism. You either need to bring a better product, or a better price, or both to the table to get customers and scale. Without this value proposition, you remain unnoticed, and staying unnoticed is not something that a brand wants to do.
You have to do all this and also make sure that you stay cashflow positive at the same time. Otherwise, you’re at a real risk of becoming a large hollow balloon that your competitors are just waiting for to explode or implode under its own weight.
As we’ve entered the era of AI, the notion of a product’s efficacy, cost efficiency, marketability, workflow management, and logistics reliability has become increasingly relevant and prevalently impactful. None of this is background noise anymore. It is the difference between bleeding money on traditional media and actually engineering a profitable campaign.
For example, META’s AI Algorithm has finally given us the ability to measure the ‘CREATIVE’ for a business’s promotions. The best part is that we can do so organically. Content that is actually relevant to the target audience gets more views through reach. This tells us exactly how the audience is reacting before we even scale the budget. This is how we have been gifted the ability to provide merit to the madness of the creative process.
So, our process is as follows:
A set of creatives is built for social media
Their performance is closely monitored for reach and engagement.
Based on the best organic performance, we choose the creative.
Make micro adjustments to add a sales proposition and CTA (but keep it subtle)
Publish the modified creative as an ad.
There’s a lot that goes on in between, but this is the basic method for getting it right. And this is just the AI that’s being used by platforms across the world.
AI utilisation is something that has greatly made the creative process a lot easier. As an agency that thrives on coming up with ideas that are out of this world, we have made the most of leveraging AI to bring ideas to life without spending a fortune.
So, this way, the ability to create high-impact brand stories is no longer under the tyrannical gatekeeping of large budget organisations. It is now that merit solely falls on the storyteller.
Now, AI-powered content production and the AI algorithm on Social Media platforms are asking the question: Is your content compelling?. If yes, the audience will watch your content, share it, and engage with it.
And when it comes to keeping budgets down, we can surely say that it holds the capability to execute million-dollar shoots at a fraction of the cost.
For example, we recently came across a creative challenge by a major Real Estate Developer from Gurugram. They had signed a celebrity couple for their brand ambassadorship a few months ago. They were now about to launch their new project, but for some reason, they could not get their shoot done.
What we came up with was to use the likeness of this celebrity couple and place them throughout the project’s feature video. With the help of AI generation, we were able to rebuild a completely new feature video with their brand ambassadors in 2 days, and no additional physical shots were required.
Imagine being able to save 50-60 lakhs in production costs, 15-20 days in production time, and comfortably be ahead of schedule to launch the project.
This has changed the game entirely. With AI, you can now just acquire the likeness rights of celebrities, and you can just build environments and scenarios with them. The balance between creative and artificial intelligence isn’t a battle for control; it is simply the ultimate tool for survival and scale in a landscape that rewards the fastest and the smartest.
