Selling out within a few hours of launch, the buzz around the new PS5 was something Doritos were eager to tap into and establish themselves as the gamer’s snack of choice. Sharing the triangular shape with one of Playstation’s instantly recognisable icons they recognised the opportunity to do much more than an on-pack promo. To truly cement their place in the hearts of gamers, traditional comms weren't going to cut it, they wanted Doritos lovers to feel the thrill of gaming beyond the console. The brief was to make this a reality - to bring Doritos and gaming together in a joyful way that engaged gamers across six markets - UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Ireland & Australia - with success being judged based on interaction levels and sales.

Doritos® AR Quest

Celebrating the launch of the PlayStation 5 with a unique Creative Tech experience - Augmented Reality Quest - that sent gamers on a hunt to find the four iconic PlayStation shapes.

PlayStation is known for its four iconic symbols: Square, Cross, Circle and Triangle. And the triangle has also always been Doritos’ signature shape. But what if you found Doritos in other shapes? We took this concept and created an Augmented Reality Quest game based on geo-location and blockchain technology that challenged fans to find the four PlayStation shapes in virtual Doritos bags. Find all four shapes, and players could win the new, and sold out, PS5. We gave gamers the type of experience that they crave, a game, whilst combining the key brand assets of both brands. A win-win.

Doritos wanted to connect with PlayStation gamers and build an association with the gaming occasion. Whilst gaming as a whole is a broad passion point, overlaying the PlayStation audience with Doritos’ own target demographic helped to identify 18-34s in urban locations as the core target. Knowing the obvious (that this audience loves to play), we set out to understand more about the type of experiences that they’d appreciate. Leveraging our own first party data, we found that 50% of 18-34s had tried AR in the previous 6 months. Understanding what Doritos were aiming to achieve, and combining their love for gaming and recent experimentation with this emerging technology, we developed an innovative way to extend a Doritos on-pack PS5 partnership - a gamified AR treasure hunt.

With their phones, users could explore a map of virtual Doritos bags (via mobile-web to ensure a low barrier to entry) and head to the real-world location to find the one of 4 Playstation shapes, and pick up prizes in AR. The platform used blockchain technology to share unique AR digital objects (Vatoms) with real-world value, such as a PlayStation 5, games, digital subscriptions or other exciting prizes. We also drove footfall into Tesco stores by giving away thousands of real bags of Doritos via a digital voucher. When Covid restrictions hit, we pivoted the game mechanic and allowed users to manually drop bags closer to their GPS location, thereby allowing all users to play safely in their homes.

For the four weeks the game was live, we saw over 160,000 registered users across those six countries playing over 550,000 times, and collecting over 24,000 prizes, with an average dwell time of over 3 minutes. So popular was the AR Quest that we had to limit the amount of players. And in the UK, Q4 sales of Doritos saw a 21% YoY increase due to the campaign.