June 04, 2007
Doritos Flavor Experiment X-13 D
Wal-mart had a 49% discount on Doritos chips today (49% off gas station price - about 25% off normal Walmart price), so the wife and I picked up several bags. Among them, there was a very strange-looking bag. It was all black and had the words X-13 D in large letters, and "Flavor Experiment" written above them in smaller type.
What, you might ask, is this "flavor experiment"?
Well, apparently, they've got this new flavor that they couldn't come up with a name for. And, in a move of either brilliant or idiotic marketing (time will tell) they've released this particular nondescript-looking bag of chips with the request that the customers submit their own names for it.
If you haven't tasted it (and I have no idea which other cities it's being test-marketed in), I can go ahead and tell you it's almost exactly like your first bite into a breaded fish stick (before you taste the actual fish) dipped in a sweet, tangy cocktail sauce. I like it. My wife doesn't. But regardless, the flavor isn't one that lends itself easily to a name or picture that's going to sell a lot of chips.
But whatever your opinion of the actual taste, that bit about getting the customers to name the chip is where I think the Doritos marketing folks have come up with something potentially brilliant. According to studies in the power of influence, people who claim to hold a certain position when writing or talking, even if they have never had a reason to hold that position before, will begin to align behind it, such that it really becomes their opinion. So, rather than try to come up with some catchy marketing name for this bag of chips which tastes like hush-puppies in cocktail sauce, they get their customers to start coming up with clever marketing terms for them.
Now of course everyone wants their name to be chosen, so they have to come up with a favorable-sounding name for a chip that seems to embody the essence of a trip to Captain D's Seafood. In so doing, they may unwittingly convince themselves that they actually like that flavor of chip, and continue to purchase it, even if they weren't initially all that impressed with it.
As I said before, I do like the chip, but I don't think it's anything spectacular. Personally, I like Cool Ranch better. But given Doritos' numerous lame attempts to expand their line of chips to include other flavors beyond "Nacho Cheese" and "Cool Ranch", I will be fascinated to see whether this radically new approach to marketing proves more successful than their other efforts.
Heck, I'm already impressed enough by the sheer outlandishness of the idea to be blogging about it. I certainly didn't do that when they released any of their other recent flavors.
As for a name, all I could come up with was "Cajun Cocktail". Anyone else have an idea?
i don't know who you are, but your blog here is the first thing that came up in a web search for "doritos flavor experiment."
the packaging scared me. but i was afraid it would kill me if i didn't buy it. (this morning, at a BP in the BP in the suburbs of chicago.)
i would say (at least from the list of ingredients) that the flavor they are aiming for is cheeseburger. but i definitely agree with the coctail sauce assessment.
Posted by: campbelltron at June 14, 2007 10:50 AM