Background

Northwestern’s Annual Kellogg Marketing Competition is an opportunity for first-year graduate students to get hands-on experience marketing for a real brand. Each team is assigned to a product and creates a marketing plan for it to appeal to the wider Kellogg student community.

The culmination of the competition is a Kellogg TG (short for TGIF, a Kellogg tradition where students mingle and enjoy snacks and drinks every Friday afternoon) where students are given a set number of tickets to spend on the products as they wish. The profit for each team is factored into the total score. My team was assigned to Lay’s Classic chips, which were being re-released with new packaging to emphasize their status as being made from real potatoes and having a rich heritage.

My team decided to target the Social Snacker segment. Social Snackers tend to value reliability and shareability in snacks, so we emphasized the classic nature of Lay’s. We utilized promotional avenues like flyers, student Slack channels, and an Instagram account (examples shown below).

We tapped into the nostalgia aspect of our marketing plan by encouraging others to share their Lay’s stories, sharing our own, and hosting a photo booth. In addition, we included bundles in our pricing to incentivize students to share with others, positioned Lay’s as a prime party snack, and challenged students to the Elite Eight Challenge. This is a play off of the Society of Seven, a “society” that Kellogg students join when they have had seven drinks at one TG. Instead of seven drinks, students would complete the challenge by eating an entire 8 ounce bag of Lay’s during the event.

Our efforts paid off, and we were the only team to completely sell out of inventory during the final summit. Our booth consistently attracted the most foot traffic, and students commonly took advantage of the bundling deals we offered. We ultimately placed second, and we are proud to have successfully re-introduced Lay’s to the Kellogg community.