Tostitos Scoops! | BradMcLaws v 1.5

My Role

Inventor and Product Creator

I worked in Brand Management at Frito-Lay® with responsibilities for Tostitos®. While in that role I developed a strategic roadmap of product development that set the stage for the development of many new Tostitos products.

From Fruit Snack Segmentation

to National Ad Campaign

Specifically related to Tostitos Scoops!®:

I developed the consumer insight that unlike every other Frito-Lay product, Tostitos was primarily used for dipping salsa, cheese, beans, etc. I determined that a more dippable chip (especially one that could be patented) was strategically wise.
I conducted innovative product development research that let consumers play with, create and evaluate 100's of different styles and shapes of dipping chips in real time -- allowing us to find the optimal dipping chip shape.
The ideal "scoop" shape was extremely difficult to make and samples would not hold their shape. Manufacturing of the product would require significant innovation to mass produce, but this also created a significant strategic barrier which has been the key to Scoops enormous profitability.
I created the very first "prototype bag" of Tostitos Scoops! -- A clear bag with a silk-screen design including the Scoops logo. And because the chips were nearly impossible to make at that point, this first bag was filled with hundreds of tortilla-pattern-printed-cardstock-chips, each cut and hand-folded by me and my kids at our kitchen table into the now iconic "Scoops" shape.
I pitched the proposition to senior management and secured resources to develop the technology with R&D.
After several years of technical development, the R&D team perfected and patented the technology to make Scoops. While I spec'ed out the ideal shape of the chip, I did not create the technical breakthrough that allowed the chips to retain their distinctive shape while being boiled in hot oil. This was a significant innovation by the R&D team.
Then the Tostitos team -- under the direction of Mike Munro (LinkedIn Profile) -- championed and rolled the product nationally. I had moved on from Frito-Lay when the product was finally launched.

25 years on and they are still using my original design

Status

Invented 1997

Launched 2001

Still in Market

$9B in profit so far

While consulting for PepsiCo® in 2006, I was told by the then CMO that Scoops was the most successful new product in the history of Frito-Lay. Because of its novel design this is one of the very, very few patented chips on the market making it enormously profitable. Estimates are that this invention has yielded $9B in profits in its first 25 years in market. So without a doubt this is the most impactful new product of my career.