Social Media Monitoring Part 2: Doritos VS Lay's: Which One is Your Favorite

In the part 1, I mainly discussed Doritos and one of its famous marketing campaign, " Crash the Super Bowl". For the part 2, I want to explore further about the relationship between Doritos and the groundswell, as well as how the Doritos' competitor, Lay's, tapped into the groundswell. 

To be honest, Lay's classical salted chip and Nacho Cheese Doritos can be ranked in the top three of my favorite snacks. This makes me even more want to figure out what makes these two brands stand out from the crowd.
Even though Lay's and Doritos are cousin brands, both owned by Frito-lay, the competition within the same corporation can also be extremely fierce.

1. Social Media 
                                             Lay's                          Doritos
Facebook likes                      6M                              15M
Twitter followers                 398K                            561K
Instagram followers            120K                            72.5K


Compared with Lay's, Doritos has more followers on Facebook and Twitter but has less followers on Instagram. Considering the real fact that Doritos' main focus of social media platforms are Facebook and Twitter, it is no wonder that Doritos has less followers than Lay's on Instagram. 
What puzzled me is Lay's, actually, put more effort into improving its social media exposure than Doritos did on Facebook and Twitter but, instead, received less followers' attention. Now, let's take a look at these two brands' performances on social media platforms in detail.

• Facebook

In addition, when it comes to Facebook, what Doritos has done so far, basically, was about updating regular propaganda advertisements or information  related to its products, and answering some of its customers' questions randomly. It appeared that Doritos did a great job on building a  harmonious relationship with the groundswell---at least they did show their concerns to some of its consumers. However, when compared with Lay's, Doritos' efforts in interacting with the groundswell is far from enough.
From what I have found out, Lay's did their best to interact with its followers and cared about its consumers' thoughts or concerns.  Be it from answering followers' inquiries, or from showing concern about their customers' feelings, Lay's tried very hard to shorten the distance between itself and its costumers. You can easily find the dialogue between Lay's and its followers in the comment below every post of Lay's. However, the dialogue is not that often to be seen from Doritos' Facebook page.  

• Twitter

As for both Doritos and Lay's, Twitter is mainly used for advertising and encourage the groundswell to get involved in their campaigns. However, Doritos has low frequency in energizing the groundswell(around one post once a week),  when compared with Lay's(around one post every three days). The good thing is, the interaction between Doritos and the groundswell on Twitter is more frequent than on Facebook. For instance, during the period of campaign of "Crash the Super Bowl", Doritos awarded some enthusiasts a year's worth of Doritos for their honorable mention of #Doritos on Twitter.

• Instagram

Instagram is not Doritos' focus of social media platform, and is mainly used for informing the public about the recent campaigns. So far, Doritos has only posted 123 posts in total. I think Doritos does not use Instagram frequently because Instagram is only allowed to post pictures and videos without links to websites, and interactions with the groundswell.

From the comments below the post of " Crash the Super Bowl" we can see, most people really enjoyed the commercials from the campaign. And it proved again that "Crash the Super Bowl" has brought Doritos a great success.

                          

3. The Trends

• MeltWater IceRocket

As the heat of "Crash the Super Bowl" subsided gradually, plus the low enthusiasm of Doritos in reaching out to the groundswell, the blog related to Doritos on social media platforms remained extremely low when compared with the statistics of Lay's. 

• Social Mention

Lay's 3/14/16

Doritos 3/14/16

As can be seen above, for a specific day (3/14/16), Doritos received a slightly higher social mention number on social media platforms. From my perspective, the primary cause of this situation can be attributed to Doritos' larger follower groups than Lay's'. With more than two times followers base of Lay's, it is reasonable for more people talking about Doritos.

• Google Trends

From Google Trends statistics we can see, the spike of Doritos in February was obviously due to the "Crash the Super Bowl" campaign which did bring Doritos a tremendous success in elevating its degree of social mention. However, when people's interests in the campaign had faded away, the interest towards Lay's was in the lead once again. The reason, from my perspective, is that Lay's was actively promoting on social media platforms all the time while Doritos remained low degree of exposure on social media once again.

3. Thoughts On Doritos From the Groundswell
The book, Groundswell, gives lots of practical suggestions for modern organizations tapping into the groundswell. Combining the book with what we have looked at Doritos's performances on social media platforms, we can see that Doritos has advantages for its brand promotion; however, there are still some improvements Doritos need to make.

• Weakness

Firstly,  compared with Lay's enthusiasm on utilizing social media platforms, Doritos need to pay more attention to interacting with the groundswell. Just like the book mentioned, "the key to energizing is listening first"(P.216. Groundswell). 

As for Doritos, the degree of listening to the groundswell was not enough to support the processes of interacting and energizing with the groundswell. Because Doritos did not give customers' thoughts enough attention. Under this circumstance, customers may wonder the real purpose of Doritos' marketing strategies. In other words, are these campaigns just out of attracting the public's attention and utilizing the impact of "word of mouth" or out of energizing the public to get involved in? From my perspective, only through sufficient feedbacks from listening to the groundswell can Doritos understand its customers then to choose target customers to energize.

Secondly, Doritos could have done better in reacting to the criticism online. For instance, during the period of "Crash the Super Bowl" campaign, National Abortion and Reproductive Right Action League(NARAL) attacked Doritos' "Ultrasound" Super Bowl ad for "humanizing fetuses". And some customers also showed their disappointments about the hidden "inhuman" content in the commercial. However, Doritos ignored these negative comments like nothing had happened. Even though most of the netizens were on the side of Doritos, I still think Doritos should clarify that the real purpose of this commercial was to be entertaining instead of teasing. Keeping silent will not let these negative comments disappear. No matter for the negative or positive comments, Doritos should always show their concerns about customers.

• Strengths

Firstly, the creative marketing campaigns like the annual "Crash the Super Bowl" contest and the activity of offering activists one year's worth of Doritos snacks have brought Doritos enormous favorable comments and good reputation. 

Secondly, Doritos is a snack brand, which represents there is no specific customer group that Doritos need to aim at: its customer base is from little kids to old people. Besides, with plenty of flavors and more than 50 years' history, Doritos has already achieved a massive consumer base.

Thirdly, with such a large group of followers on social media platforms, as long as Doritos utilize the social media appropriately, it is easy for Doritos to achieve its promoting goals.

Last but not least, Doritos has more flavors and is more filling and heavier than Lay’s, which is an existing strength Doritos should be proud of.

Recommendations

Based on what I have mentioned before; I would recommend Doritos several suggestions as follow:

• Listening is important. Doritos should listen to its customers more often, then to figure out what the customers really want. Only through listening can Doritos make improvements. 
• To answer its customers' inquiries and to interact with customers more frequent. Considering the condition that Doritos did not pay enough attention on interacting with the groundswell on social media platforms, it is necessary for Doritos improving its relationship with the groundswell.
• Tapping the groundswell with Instagram. Instagram can be a great platform for increasing social media exposure. However, Doritos posted videos or photos very few and received a small number of followers than it supposed to have,  which can be a disadvantage of Doritos. Especially considering the fact that Doritos has lots of popular and creative video commercials and pictures, Doritos should not neglect the important role of Instagram in improving its reputation.
• Empowering the groundswell appropriately. Mostly, Doritos was in an active position in the relationship with the groundswell, which can discourage the groundswell to get involved in Doritos' campaigns to some extent. In the future, Doritos should be confident in giving the groundswell some powers to help Doritos make decision, just like they did in the campaign  of " Crash the Super Bowl". 
• Interacting with the groundswell in a genuine tone. Instead of asking the groundswell to get involved in, Doritos should be more genuine to show that they really care about customers' opinions.
• Keeping on energizing the groundswell through creative propaganda campaigns. Doritos did great job on energizing its customers to get involved in campaigns. Although, the campaign, " Crash the Super Bowl", has brought Doritos great reputation and the benefit of "word of the mouth," Doritos should continue to look for other creative and attractive campaigns.

Conclusion

Overall, Doritos has already realized the importance of the groundswell in the process of its brand development, and did a great job in energizing the groundswell. However,  for the development in the future, Doritos should pay more attention on interacting with the groundswell with more frequent conservations on social media platforms, and put the process of building harmonious relationship with the groundswell into its list of future goals.