Cheetos and Doritos are set to return with Super Bowl commercials

Frito-Lay is back in the Super Bowl with spots for its Cheetos and Doritos brands. The National Football League sponsor also plans to remind people to stock up on chips before the game with a broader portfolio campaign featuring former football stars that will also air on Super Bowl Sunday before the coin toss. Each of the in-game spots will focus on new products: Cheetos Crunch Pop Mix, a combination of Cheetos Crunchy and Cheetos Popcorn that was released on Monday, and Doritos 3D Crunch, a snack introduced in late December that updates the Doritos 3D from 1998. The PepsiCo Inc. snack unit did not confirm whether celebrities would appear in the in-game spots or which agencies are behind the projects. However, it did release pajama-clad images of NFL stars including Marshawn Lynch, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders from the portfolio campaign. That push includes Lay’s, Tostitos, Doritos and Cheetos, and follows a campaign featuring NFL stars including Lynch that coincided with the kickoff of the season. The Super Bowl is a critical time of year for Frito-Lay, as snacking is big business for game day gatherings. With the coronavirus pandemic, the company is preparing for demand to remain strong heading into the game, as people continue to spend more time at home. The company is ramping up its production leading up to this year’s Super Bowl. Frito-Lay typically produces 600 million pounds of product in the six weeks leading up to the NFL’s championship game, according to data released by the company. PepsiCo sibling brand Pepsi, meanwhile, is sitting out the Super Bowl ad game and focusing on its sponsorship of the halftime show featuring The Weeknd. In the 2020 Super Bowl, Cheetos Popcorn was promoted in a spot starring MC Hammer, which came from creative agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and aired during the first quarter. And Doritos featured an updated Cool Ranch flavor in a spot, also from Goodby, that aired during the third quarter and starred Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott, with a cameo from Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” collaborator Billy Ray Cyrus. If Doritos 3D Crunch sounds familiar, that’s because it’s an updated take on Doritos 3D, which was sold from 1998 until the early 2000s and made its Super Bowl debut in the Laundromat spot starring Ali Landry in 1998. Landry in recent weeks was promoting Doritos 3D Crunch on social media, including hyping a #Doritos3DChallenge on TikTok.Join Ad Age on Feb. 2 for a look at how brands are navigating the pandemic and addressing diversity in their ads for the 2021 game.

Cheetos and Doritos are set to return with Super Bowl commercials

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