• by Aaron Baar , March 16, 2010

Frito-Lay is looking to consumers to bring its year-old Lay's potato chip tagline, "Happiness is Simple," to life via a digital collage that will be used in future advertising initiatives.

The company is creating what it calls the "Happiness Exhibit," which will feature consumer-submitted photographs of their happy moments. The project will continually expand as consumers upload their own photographs through May 31 (though the site will remain live through the remainder of the year). The company chose photography based on research that showed 70% of Americans have a digital camera and take an average of 28 pictures a month.

"Our consumer is a memory maker," Kate Garner, Lay's senior brand manager, tells Marketing Daily in an emailed response to questions. "She values photo-sharing sites to catalogue her life for enjoyment by herself, friends, and family."

Over the course of the next few months, Lays will choose select photos from the exhibit to be featured on Lay's potato chip bags and in commemorative issues of People magazine, including Mother's Day and a summer-themed edition, running over Memorial Day weekend. In addition, online visitors can browse other photos and interact with online applications like Smile-O-Grams, video e-cards and wallpaper.

The goal of this campaign is to celebrate moments of simple happiness and exhibit them in a form that can be viewed by all Americans and traditional advertising does just that," Garner says of the People magazine component. "We're excited to provide a national stage like the pages of People magazine since our focus is on the female consumer who we know reads [it] on a regular basis."

Lay's unveiled its "Happiness is Simple" tagline last year as a way to highlight the simplicity of the potato chip brand. The line is meant to invoke the product's ingredients, which are potatoes, oil and salt. On March 14, the company celebrated "National Potato Chip Day" by handing out 10,000 free bags of chips in New York City.