About

Lay's Do Us A Flavor Parodies are mockups of packaging design concepts featuring new flavor ideas for the American snack food company Frito Lay's crowdsourced marketing campaign and contest "Do Us a Flavor." The parodies often use improbable or unappetizing flavors for humorous effect.

Origin

In 2008, Pepsico launched a "Do Us a Flavor" contest for the Walkers crisps brand of snack foods in the United Kingdom, which challenged consumers to help the company create a new potato chip flavor (shown below, left). In September 2012, the Pepsico potato chip brand Lay's ran its on version of the "Do Us a Flavor" contest, rewarding the winner with a million dollar cash prize (shown below, right).

On September 29th, 2012, Tumblr^[1] user CoryDoctorow posted a screenshot of parody chip flavors submitted to the "Do Us a Flavor" contest, including "World's Meanest Dad," "Gargled Milk" and several different scenarios involving "weeping" (shown below). In the first two years, the post gathered more than 4,800 notes.

Finalist Proposals

In 2013, Wisconsin resident Karen Weber-Mendham won the Lay's contest with the "cheesy garlic bread" flavor, beating out the sriracha and "chicken and waffles" submissions.

Spread

Few parodies were created until Lay's began receiving entries for a new "Do Us a Flavor" contest on January 13th, 2014. Participants could use the official Lay's Do Us a Flavor^[5] web app to create their own custom potato chip bags to submit to the contest (shown below).

On January 15th, the "Do Us a Flavor" Tumblr^[2] blog was launched, which highlights images of parody Lay's potato chip flavors.

On January 26th, Tumblr^[3] user Moist Chunky Slurp posted a compilation of notable photoshopped Lay's potato chip bags, garnering upwards of 83,100 notes in the following four days (shown below, left). On January 27th, Tumblr^[4] user AerosmithHearts highlighted several potato chip bag images for several humorous flavors, including "Beer," "White People Tears," "You Don't Want to Know" and "'Murica" (shown below, right). In the first 72 hours, the post gained over 21,600 notes.

On January 30th, Redditor TheIndicaProphecies submitted a Do Us a Flavor creation for "Toothpaste and Orange Juice" to the /r/funny^[6] subreddit, where it accumulated more than 20,700 up votes and 1,000 comments in the next three hours (shown below).

Search Interest

External References