Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

So you want to position your product as “fun.” Join the club. There are a million brands and products out there boasting their ability to deliver fun: high-tech gadgets, sports cars, a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers. How do you differentiate your “fun” product from all the rest? You could launch a full-blown attack against its “serious fun-ness.”

This may seem counterintuitive. Why would you want to raise opposition to your brand? Because consumers respond well to companies who don’t take themselves too seriously — especially when juxtaposed against an individual or organization that takes itself über-seriously. The key to successfully pulling off this type of advertising is creating the quintessential killjoy.  

Welcome to www.nolaf.org. NOLAF (National Organization for Legislation Against Fun) is a fictional, yet somewhat frighteningly believable grassroots group founded to stamp out all things fun. Their public enemy #1? Tostitos chips and dip. This McCarthyesque group of characters are bound and determined to crush the crispy brand to bits, eradicating it and its enjoyable effects.  Besides the brilliant casting, flawless execution, high quality production, attention to detail and dry, witty humor, the concept behind this site is pure gold. If you don’t eat Tostitos chips and dip, you are practically in league with NOLAF. Or at least you’re one of their mindless guinea pigs (dressed like the 1970s Olympic track team but not nearly in as good of shape).

The beauty of this site is the barely visible Tostitos brand. They aren’t using the site to sell the brand; it was created for the sheer pleasure of the visitor. I clicked on everything because I couldn’t get enough of the head honcho (love child of Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute) and his geezer sidekick.

By creating an anti-fun group that despises their brand and giving their target a chance to get in on the joke, Tostitos proves that it is a very “fun” chip.