You Write the End. Which Doritos Flavour Will be Destoyed?

Doritos Canada is back with ‘Write the End‘, another interesting campaign soliciting user-generated content to promote two new flavour experiments. You may remember the previous campaigns Become the Doritos Guru Contest; in which people were asked to come up with a name and 30 second ad for the plain-packaged mystery flavour and Viralocity; where people not only named the flavour, created and ad but were asked to try to make their ad go ‘viral’.  This time they’re asking consumers to create their own ending to the TV commercial embedded below.

In the commercial two flavour technicians are tolling away at the Doritos Research Facility creating new chip flavours. The young upstart has developed ‘Onion Rings and Ketchup‘ while the old master has come up with ‘Buffalo Wings n’ Ranch‘ flavour. The two researchers are led to the Flavour Master, who according to the website bio has 7 times as many taste buds as any other mammal on earth. The two flavours are presented to the Master, the video breaks up with the question “Which flavour gets destroyed? And how?”

Viewers are asked to write the rest of the story. 14 finalists will be picked, 7 for each flavour. The finalists will make a pitch to the ad agency and commercial director, who’ll select the winning entry to be filmed in secret to be revealed on May 5. The winner gets $25,000 and 1% of future sales of the winning flavour.

Making contest entry simpler

In an interview with Marketing Magazine, Tim Welsh, vice-president, group account director at BBDO Toronto explained that he feels change in how people enter the contest will help increase the amount of entries.

“The last couple of years we’ve done video… there’s all this rigmarole that goes with it,” he said. “By just asking people to write [their entry]… you just have to have an idea and it kind of levels the playing field.”

In a quick scan of the gallery this definitely appears to be the case. Last year’s Viralocity campaign received over 1,100 video entries, while it looks like ‘Write the End’ has brought in 6-7 times that many. It’s important to note that even in 2011, where video cameras seem to be everywhere and 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute that not everyone can or will create a video entry.

Where’s the Mobile?

I’m a little surprised that the bags don’t at least suggest a visit to a mobile site enabled by either a short code, QR code or a mobile redirect at the URL. I entered the URL ‘WritetheEnd.ca’ on my iPhone and iPad and was directed to a page with a message that ‘The Backup site will be up shortly… Please Go To WritetheEnd.ca’. An odd message considering I was already at the site – its possible that the mobile site was down this afternoon. I’m wondering if they left the mobile site out based on some research that despite people buying the product in a store while out, they still consume it somewhere that they have access to a laptop or PC

‘A’ vs ‘B’: The Taste Test
Doritos: You Write the End
As for the two flavours (yes, I did go to the corner store for samples), my taste buds are definitely siding with ‘A’ bag featuring Onion Rings N’ Ketchup flavour, the taste of ketchup is very strong, but the hint of deep-fried onion rings are definitely in there too.

The ‘B’ bag featuring Buffalo Wings n’ Ranch flavour is still burning its way through my body and must be destroyed immediately. My stomach may never forgive me for getting involved in this debate.