Picasso had his blue period. And now Takis does as well, using paint to promote its new Blue Flame tortilla chips and building on its “Don’t Eat This” campaign admonition.
Along with outdoor advertising agency Publicité Sauvage, Takis and Cossette created posters that ooze blue paint from an eater’s mouth, spilling paint onto the sidewalks of a Montreal street. They then filmed the reactions of passersby. People engaged with the poster, stepped in the paint and posed for photos. One gentleman even licked his fingers to confirm that, yes, it was indeed paint that he was tasting.
Manufactured locally by Grupo Bimbo subsidiary Canada Bread, Takis has strong brand awareness in the U.S. and Mexico, where it has been available for more than 20 years. However, it is relatively new to the Canadian marketing, having only launched here in 2017.
When the brand made its first marketing push last summer, it warned people against eating the chips as they were too intense, and this played out in its assets, according to Cossette creative director Patrick Michaud. (“We cannot stress this enough. Just don’t do it. Don’t even think about doing it,” the brand warns in a video disclaimer.)
So the brand and creative team decided to build on the reverse psychology angle, with “don’t eat our posters.”
Takis also made tongues wag with a colour surprise: it had Instagram and Twitch influencers livestream their reactions to their first tasting of a Blue Flame tortilla chip, which turned their mouths blue.
The blues are being amplified online and on social, in a campaign attempting to discourage consumers from trying Takis Blue Flame with messages like, “you wouldn’t crunch down on a pen,” as a bowling alley attendant bites down and oozes blue from his lips.
Warnings also appear in OOH and in movie theatres and come to life on social media thanks to a Snapchat filter, Instagram stickers (which alone have already generated over 3.1 million views) and campaign-themed GIFs.