How Doritos Celebrated Boldness with Visually-Impaired Record-Breaking Skateboarder Dan Mancina
Doritos has recently launched its new global campaign exploring the essence of boldness, ‘For the Bold in Everyone’. As part of this, the tortilla chips brand has embarked on a storytelling journey for the bold and the brave.
In collaboration with Sips & Bites and director Thomas James, Doritos told the stories of those who have succeeded solely on the back of their own boldness, defying expectations. One of these tales is Dan Mancina’s - a visually impaired skateboarder who has achieved a Guinness World Record for a 50-50 grind.
In the spot, a film camera follows Dan as he explains his journey towards loving skating and doing it professionally. With dynamic shots and fish-eye sequences, Thomas tells LBB that the aim was to shoot a skateboarding video above all, to keep the authenticity of the sport intact while telling Dan’s incredible story.
Other iterations of Doritos Stories feature such plucky characters as septuagenarian hip-hop duo Pete & Bas, English footballer Chloe Kelly and 'dancing granny' Colette Zacca.
LBB’s Zoe Antonov speaks to senior creatives at Sips & Bites and PepsiCo Jon Usher and Paul Stoeter, as well as to OB42 director Thomas about the making of the campaign and how these stories were directed.
LBB> What was the brief for this campaign and how did you initially approach it?
Jon & Paul> Doritos wants to challenge people to rethink their biases, assumptions, and stereotypes by celebrating those who defy expectations. We set out to source real stories that would deliver dynamic, impactful narratives with a thought-provoking message for everyone watching.
LBB> Tell me more about Doritos' new global campaign exploring the essence of boldness and how this installation fits within it.
Jon & Paul> Doritos’ brand purpose is to create a world of bold acceptance where no one needs to hide their edges and passions. To spearhead this ambition Doritos are debuting the brand’s first-ever unified creative campaign and international brand platform - ‘For the Bold in Everyone’ - redefining the meaning of ‘bold’ and inspiring people to “be triangles in a world of circles.”
LBB> How does the idea of boldness resonate with the Doritos brand and why?
Jon & Paul> Boldness today is about self-expression, owning your true self, speaking your mind and standing up for what you believe in. Doritos has always embraced the bold which is reflected in its bold shape, bold flavour and bold crunch.
LBB> How did you come up with all of these stories to fit in with the global campaign and why was their exploration a journey you needed to embark on as a brand?
Jon & Paul> We searched for stories where people have found success despite negative expectations and assumptions around their age, gender or disability.
The people we found were: Chloe Kelly - a female footballer whose powerful shot challenged gender stereotypes, Pete & Bas - grime MCs who have achieved success despite taking on a career later in life, and Dan Mancina - a blind professional skateboarder who has a Guinness World Record for a 50-50 grind.
LBB> Speaking specifically about Dan Mancina, how did his story make its way into this campaign and how did you approach him?
Jon & Paul> We found snippets of his story online and approached him to take part in our campaign. His attitude of bringing hope and inspiration to others aligned perfectly with what we wanted to communicate so it was a match made in heaven.
LBB> What was it like doing the interviews with him and getting him to open up - was it empowering telling his story and filming him skate?
Jon & Paul> It was humbling to hear his story and get to know him better. He personifies perseverance and the human spirit. On the shoot itself there was one moment he took around 60 takes to land a trick and, although he was exhausted, he simply didn’t give up until he landed it perfectly.
Thomas> Dan is an incredible human - and was very forthcoming with his experiences. But his tenacity on the day, like any skater, was bulletproof. I think simply being around him was empowering; it’s quite mind blowing to watch his process, and see him do his thing. People from outside the park were stopping what they were doing with their day, and lining up to watch him. It’s certainly a shoot day that will stay with me for a while.
LBB> Speaking of filming him, how long was the filming process and where did it take place? What kind of equipment was involved?
Thomas> We spent the day with Dan at BaySixty6 in Notting Hill - but had also spent a day with him beforehand, to try and get our head around his process, and fathom how he does what he does so incredibly. And then to make sure our filming approach would work with how he likes to do things.
We wanted to treat it like a proper skate vid, harking to a lot of the visual landscape of the world; using 16mm, fish eye lenses, old digicams and skating operators. For us, we were creating a skate vid that had an incredible backstory; rather than telling the story with some peripheral skating moments - so that’s how we approached it. It was about being true to Dan and his process.
LBB> What were the most challenging parts of this campaign?
Jon & Paul> The most challenging part was striking the right balance between delivering entertaining content and establishing our purpose without being patronising and inauthentic.
LBB> What was the main message that the brand wanted to send to its audiences with this series of films?
Jon & Paul> To be bold and true to yourself in life no matter what people may think or say to discourage you.
LBB> Any final thoughts?
Jon & Paul> This was a dream brief for us and an absolute pleasure to work with these talented people to hero their talents and triumph in the face of societal bias. We’re already thinking about how to build on the Doritos purpose for next year!
