Pacqui's Game Changing CPG Contest

On September 21st, 2016 Paqui, a relatively unknown chip brand at the time, sat down with Mashable to talk exclusively about their new chip. Paqui had taken the world’s hottest pepper and paired it with a completely unheard of product. Branded as the world’s hottest chip, the Carolina Reaper Chip was not only as a product, but as a challenge.

Priced at $4.99, Paqui was planning to release a snack experience unlike any other. Available in select stores and on Paqui’s website, the Carolina Reaper Chip was more than a product. The #OneChipChallenge was a fully branded product experience and Paqui was inviting consumers to be a part of it.

From a promotional stand-point, Paqui had all of their bases covered. The first was the challenge and contest portion. When presented with the premise of “the world’s hottest chip”, skepticism is immediately evoked. This gets the consumer thinking, “I can do this, there’s no way it’s that hot.” From there product interest spikes through the roof. Increased awareness translates to participation. Much like other shopper marketing contests, increased participation means increased sales.

A powerful incentive can motivate almost any consumer. Learn more about our prizing and fulfillment services along with the rest of our promotions built especially for cpg products.

To increase contest awareness Paqui doubled down on their marketing strategy and integrated social media to the shopper marketing campaign. Entry was simple, record yourself eating the chip and post the video online with #OneChipChallenge. From there you were automatically entered to win one of several grand prizes and several lower tier prizes as well.

With the contest live and chips out in the world, challenge entries flooded in. Social networks exploded with posts tagged with #OneChipChallenge. While participating in the challenge proved fun, watching others proved even more entertaining.

In 2 weeks the campaign had earned Paqui over 500MM impressions - a number that continued to climb through the following months. Traditionally, shopper marketing relies heavily on in-store displays right at the point of purchase. Paqui, however, was ushering in a new age of digital promotions for CPG brands and on-pack promotions.

By leveraging basic social media marketing principles, the chip challenge was able to raise their brand equity. Driving massive amounts of brand mentions and earned impressions through sharing, translating into sales and participation.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/182871066

The original Mashable piece was shared over 227,000 times and as Paqui travelled around New York giving out samples, challenging different media figures, the hype only grew. As reported by PRWeek.com, the original #OneChipChallenge was so successful that Amplify Snack Brands (the producers of Paqui Chips) reported a 400% sales growth for Q4 of 2016.

To this day Paqui’s product page shows that the chip is sold out. And while the original #OneChipChallenge ran almost three years ago, the chip continue to pop up in the media annually. With the chip challenge continuing to run annually, consumers come keep participating year after year.

Paqui’s creative cpg campaign bridged the gap between the digital world and their physical product. By pairing incentivized online participation with an exciting product, the challenge motivated purchase decisions and accelerated awareness and sales.

In the digital age of advertising, brand marketing has found a new focal point by centering around the consumer’s smartphone. At Realtime Media, we find that integrating mobile technology such as social media with on-pack promotions, like the #OneChipChallenge, is a great way to increase engagement and boost sales.

Specializing in full-service digital promotions, our full suite of shopper marketing capabilities is perfectly suited for your brand. Engage consumers at the point of sale and seamlessly turn them from passive customers into involved consumers with engaging digital promotions.

To learn more about our shopper marketing promotions, click here.