Doritos: Chips that Provide Life

I like laughing. Laughing is relaxing, enjoyable, and usually done with other people. Because of laughing's good effects on people, humor is an incredibly successful marketing technique when used correctly. A funny commercial, although still nothing more than a commercial, is much more watchable than a standard humorless one. Somehow, however, only a few companies manage to effectively use humor in their advertisements. In the super bowl, I thought Doritos, the Darth Vader commercial, and beer commercials were the funniest ads of the program. My personal favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSTEFK-LoVo. I laughed pretty hard at this the first time I saw it. To be honest, it made me want to buy Doritos. It WORKED. Doritos uses its humor really cleverly here. First of all, the whole premise of the commercial is that the friend watching his buddy's house for him is too lazy to stop eating Doritos and get off the couch to do the tiny number of menial tasks his friend asks him to carry out while he is away. This appeals to the (masculine) desire to bum around and do nothing on the couch, and then get caught in a tight spot right before the friend (or, in other terms, the wife) gets home. The commercial uses builds and releases of comedic tension. Just as you think that Doritos has saved the day with the fish and the flowers, the klutzy friend knocks over grandpa's ashes, which spill all over the floor. Of course, again, Doritos swoops in and ameliorates this sticky wicket. The cut to the grandpa on the couch without showing the friend sprinkling the Doritos on the ashes adds more to the comic suspense the commercial creates. 

     Why is this commercial so effective? What does the Doritos brand have to say about itself in this commercial? Well first and foremost, it sells itself to young men. The commercial features two young men as the main protagonists. It appeals to the laziness of young men. It also uses conspicuous consumption to its advantage (did you notice how nice and put together the apartment or house looks for a 20 some year old guy?). Doritos brands itself as a fixer. If you have a problem, just relax and have some Doritos and your problems will all go away. Not only that, you might even discover that the Doritos fix something else (grandpa) that you were not expecting. Doritos also markets itself as a product associated with leisure and couch-potato behavior. What could be better than popping a squat on your couch with a back full of cheesy Doritos, and letting the Doritos take care of your problems? On top of all this, the commercial makes Doritos feel hip and cool because it effectively appeals to our humor. If you eat Doritos, you will be a young guy who sits on his couch and doesn't have problems that Doritos can't solve. Who knows, maybe even they will even raise you from the dead like grandpa.