"Screentime is better with Lay’s." This has been Lay's strategic push recently with the goal of being top-of-mind when it comes to screentime entertainment. And nothing screams screentime more than a night at the movies.

Lay’s wanted to enhance the movie watching experience. And what does one do while watching a movie? Munch, snack, eat, crunch. Of course, people love Lay’s because of its trademark crunch. We quickly realized there was something there. Something… loud.

There’s always that one person. The loud cruncher in the cinema. Sometimes it's you who is the loud cruncher and sometimes it's you who is on the receiving end of the high-decibel crunch echoing in surround sound.

One single loud Lay's bite in a quiet cinema often results in passive aggressive stares, scorned looks, judgmental head shakes, and well, regret.

So Lay’s built a digital tool that helped viewers enjoy loud, crunchy snacking, while making

sure those around them weren’t disturbed: the Lay’s Cinema Crunch Hack.

This was a mobile tool that alerted you a few moments before a loud scene came up in a film, signaling to you that a safe time to crunch loudly was coming up.

There were two strategic tasks here:

1. Own a top-of-mind space when it comes to screentime, especially movies at the cinema.

2. Completely dominate the category of a crunchy snack as a brand. Crunch denotes freshness and flavor, and we needed to highlight that Lay's has the most crunch out there.

We targeted our consumer with a campaign that met both these objectives at the same time. We figured that a loud crunch is much welcomed by the person eating Lay's, but is an absolute nuisance to those around the loud cruncher, especially in a cinema.

So how do we convince more people to eat crunchy Lay's during a movie? We give them a tool that helps them disguise their high-decibel consumption.

The hack was simple - unlike an M.Night Shyamalam film ending.

We created a microsite that alerts you moments before any long loud scene comes up in a

film. We realized that every movie has, just like its very quiet scenes, its very loud scenes too.

Think explosions, car crashes, beat drops, a T-Rex or an orchestra of howler monkeys.

We extracted the audio data of a film and fed it into a system that would know moments before a loud scene was coming up. A simple vibration alert would then let viewers know that a safe time to crunch loudly was coming right up. An 18-wheeler about to crash into a factory that makes cymbals? Ah, the perfect time to loudly crunch.

Viewers scanned a QR code, entered their details, and sat back ready to munch their Lay’s pack with wild abandon.

This was one of Lay's most successful screentime activations. We registered an incredible 9.8+ pt Brand Lift, along with a 10-point increase in association of Lay's with screentime.

A study of movie-goers who experienced the activation found that 95% preferred to munch on Lay's while watching movies, while we measured a 90% overall consideration for the brand.

Thanks to the activation, Lay's volume growth at the time of the campaign showed a 9% rise compared to YAGO.

We'll definitely crunch to that.