According to Steven Williams, SVP of sales, chief commercial officer, Frito-Lay North America – the $15bn convenient food division of PepsiCo – Super Bowl Sunday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year for snacks.
“It’s different than other holidays we see throughout the year, as consumers are most likely to be enjoying snacks specifically at home, which can mean their choices can vary from other occasions,” he said.
Hyper-focused in lead up
“At Frito-Lay, we are hyper-focused in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl to make sure consumers can get the variety of snacks they want for game day. What better time to launch our first US Snack Index and get insights into their snack plans for this major snacking event?
Key insights
- Nine out of 10 viewers plan to have at least one snack during the game, with 80% stating it will be potato or tortilla chips.
- Los Angeles had the highest percentage of potato chip fans.
- Dallas, Miami, New York City, Seattle and Washington DC also chose potato chips as their top pick.
- Boston, Houston and this year’s Super Bowl HQ, Atlanta, veered towards tortilla chips.
- Chicago’s top pick is popcorn.
- Almost half of Gen Z and millennials opted for cheesy or spicy snacks.
- Salsa was the most popular dip, followed by French onion and guacamole.
- However, respondents noted that chip-dip pairings mattered: French onion for potato chips, and salsa and guacamole scored high for tortilla chips.
- More than one-third of survey respondents planned to share their snacking photos on social media.
“It’s interesting to see how different regions and age groups snack; everyone definitely approaches snacking in their own way.”
Williams told BakeryandSnacks that both potato chips and tortilla chips rank highest among consumers leading up to the Super Bowl.
“We saw this aligned with much of our US Snack Index data, with potato chips leading as the highest voted snack nationally, with tortilla chips just behind.
“What’s interesting about both Frito-Lay and our US Snack Index is that when you break the data down by regionality and even city levels different snack favorites come through.”
Massive audience
According to Nielsen data, the 2018 Super Bowl LII drew more than 103 million viewers.
“While we can’t speak to consumption specifically, we can say that Super Bowl Sunday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year for snacks. As another point of reference, we produced approximately 1.5 billion bags of snacks at our manufacturing sites around the US leading into 2018 Super Bowl weekend,” said Williams.
“This year, we’ve launched Doritos Flamin’ Hot Nacho tortilla chips in time for the Super Bowl.
“We will continue to build on excitement around the launch of Doritos Flamin’ Hot with the reveal of our Super Bowl ad featuring Chance the Rapper and The Backstreet Boys,” Williams told us, noting the company will announce more activitations with brands like Tostitos leading up to Super Bowl Sunday.
Survey methodology
The Doritos, Cheetos and Tostitos partnered with Morning Consult to conduct an online poll in January 2019 among 2,200 American adults.
Data was weighted to approximate a target sample based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment and region. Results have a margin error of +/- two percentage points.