Doritos receives the Colbert Bump
By
From the Wall Street Journal:
Super Bowl Is Crunch Time For Doritos’ Risky Youth Strategy
By BETSY MCKAY
February 1, 2008; Page B1…
PepsiCo agreed, and advocated for Mr. Colbert to use the company’s classic nacho-cheese flavor. Mr. Colbert’s campaign drew speculation from political pundits about possible violations of campaign-finance law. The companies say they didn’t violate the law. A spokeswoman for John Edwards, then a real-life candidate, quipped that Mr. Colbert’s “hands are stained by corporate corruption and nacho cheese.” Mr. Colbert loudly munched Doritos on air. PepsiCo “loved every minute” of Mr. Colbert’s campaign, Ms. Mukherjee says.
Doritos sales are showing promise. U.S. unit sales for all Doritos products rose 6.4% in 2007, according to IRI, whose data excludes sales at Wal-Mart, warehouse clubs, convenience stores and vending machines.
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8 Comments
February 4th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Stephen definitely convinced me of the goodness of Doritos, who helped him campaign. Well, at least enough to see for myself if I would also produce bright orange waste and see if I could rebuy it. :)
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February 4th, 2008 at 11:45 am
LOL! The phrase “crunch money” still cracks me up.
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February 4th, 2008 at 11:48 am
mmm crunchy doritos… nacho cheese… mmm
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February 4th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
So Pepsi really is a sponsor of the show!
(Re Stephen’s comments to Tim Harford on last Thursday’s show — “You just said that straight sex is Coke and oral sex is Pepsi. That’s what you just said. And you’re saying right now that the young people are the Pepsi generation. And I’m not sure, I am really not sure which one of them is our sponsor, but I’d like to apologize to one of them.”)
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February 4th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
@WWG – That’s the first thing I thought of when I read this….
but didn’t Stephen say somewhere (in a book signing Q/A or something back in November) that Doritos weren’t sponsors and in fact were surprised when he asked them if he could joke that they were sponsoring his campaign. I think the whole punchline was they got all that publicity for free.
Am I remembering the story correctly?
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February 4th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
yup, free publicity
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February 4th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
They had writers at the time so I’m not ashamed to say it, but I watched Colbert’s campaign on CC and remember being bombarded by the Doritos Missy Elliot dual-flavored ad, so maybe it would be fair to say that D sponsors the show, and indirectly, his campaign too? :)
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February 4th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
“John Edwards, then a real-life candidate…”
LOL! Poor Edwards. XD
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