A Day In The Life Of A CMO On Super Bowl Sunday: Frito-Lay’s Ram Krishnan

Super Bowl Sun­day will be a big day for the Frito-Lay CMO.

Lisa Lacy By Lisa Lacy. Join the discussion » 0 comments

Super Bowl 50 will mark the end of Dori­tos’ decade-long Crash the Super Bowl chal­lenge, which has arguably changed user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent for­ev­er. And steer­ing the con­test to its inevitable con­clu­sion is Frito-Lay CMO Ram Krish­nan.


Ram Krishnan Super BowlWhile Super Bowl Sun­day is about foot­ball and food for near­ly one-third of the US pop­u­la­tion – and for many of us, our biggest con­cern will be ensur­ing enough chick­en wings and gua­camole are on hand – Krish­nan will have to con­tend with the expec­ta­tions of a watch­ful nation as one of his brands yet again fights for noto­ri­ety on the biggest day of the year for US adver­tis­ers.

Won­der what his day will be like? Here’s a look:

Sunday, February 7, 2016

4 a.m.

Wake up.

5 a.m. – 7 a.m.

Break­fast, check emails and con­duct final inter­views with media around Crash the Super Bowl. After nine incred­i­ble years, we’ve decid­ed this will be the 10th and final Crash the Super Bowl con­test. For this final edi­tion of the pro­gram, one grand prize win­ner will not only win $1 mil­lion, but a life-chang­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to col­lab­o­rate with film­mak­er Zack Sny­der while work­ing with Warn­er Bros. Pic­tures and DC Enter­tain­ment. Sny­der is the direc­tor of the much-antic­i­pat­ed Man of Steel sequel, Bat­man v Super­man: Dawn of Jus­tice, which is set for release in March 2016.

8 a.m. – 10 a.m.

Final tours of the Dori­tos NFL Expe­ri­ence at the Moscone Cen­ter. The NFL Expe­ri­ence also fea­tures a Crash the Super Bowl Hall of Fame cel­e­brat­ing the lega­cy of the cam­paign. All 21 ads that have aired in the Super Bowl over the past 10 years are shown and fans have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring the spots to life in the bold­est way pos­si­ble by set­ting bold world records based on the spots, such as “The Fastest Dori­to Throw Wear­ing a Samu­rai Suit Made of Dori­tos” (based on the Snack Attack ad) or the Most Dori­tos Grabbed While in a Whirling Time Machine (based on the Time Machine ad).

The NFL Expe­ri­ence also fea­tures Fizz, the Pep­si soft drink mixol­o­gy plat­form that is pow­ered by dig­i­tal foun­tain Pep­si Spire and com­bines the taste of con­sumers’ favorite bev­er­ages with “unique, fun ingre­di­ents.”

11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Con­duct a Super Bowl overview for key retail cus­tomers with Pep­si­Co lead­er­ship, fea­tur­ing new inno­va­tion launch­es, NFL acti­va­tions through­out the sea­son in their stores and nev­er-before-seen acti­va­tions with Dori­tos and oth­er brands.

Attend an authen­tic and inter­ac­tive talk with foot­ball greats past and present, host­ed by for­mer defen­sive end and cur­rent Sport­sNa­tion co-host Mar­cel­lus Wiley.

1 p.m.

Head to the sta­di­um and vis­it the Dori­tos Top N’ Go Truck, a mobile vehi­cle deliv­er­ing Dori­tos Top ‘N Go to Super Bowl fans through a unique, cus­tom-built food truck made to look like this unique prod­uct – a “walk­ing taco” of Tos­ti­tos or Dori­tos in a bag with assort­ed top­pings with which con­sumers can make their own taco/nachos.

2 p.m. – End of Game

Vis­it the Tos­ti­tos Can­ti­na and cus­tom Tos­ti­tos nachos cart at the Pep­si Plat­form to sam­ple the cus­tom nacho recipe only avail­able at Levi’s Sta­di­um.

Engage with our ded­i­cat­ed team of dig­i­tal experts focused on pro­duc­ing and post­ing both pre-planned and real-time social media con­tent dur­ing the game.

Engage in social media, fol­low­ing Crash the Sec­ond Screen, a new pro­gram just launched that adds a mod­ern-day twist to the leg­endary Crash the Super Bowl con­test — unleash­ing our legion of fans to take on Madi­son Avenue through the sec­ond screen. Inspired by the same cre­ativ­i­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty of the Crash the Super Bowl con­test, we’re ask­ing fans to take over Twit­ter, too, on Super Bowl Sun­day. Crash the Sec­ond Screen is sim­ple — fans sub­mit the best tweet-based Dori­tos ad from noon PT through the final whis­tle on Super Bowl Sun­day using the hash­tag #Dori­tos and #entry for a chance to win one of three $50,000 prizes.

Par­tic­i­pate in the Super Bowl expe­ri­ence with the three Crash the Super Bowl final­ists and wit­ness the life-chang­ing moment when one of them real­izes they’ve won the $1 mil­lion prize when their spot airs.

Lisa Lacy

Written by Lisa Lacy

Lisa is a senior features writer for Inked. She also previously covered digital marketing for Incisive Media. Her background includes editorial positions at Dow Jones, the Financial Times, the Huffington Post, AOL, Amazon, Hearst, Martha Stewart Living and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

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