• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, February 12, 2011

Food Should Taste Good, Inc., a five-year-old all-natural tortilla chip maker based in Needham Heights, Mass., isn't quite in PepsiCo's league. Still, the privately held company managed to score with a Super Bowl-themed "Touch-Down Dance-Off" social media video contest/campaign.

The FSTG dance-off, hosted on the brand's Facebook page, consisted of fans competing against one another for a $10,000 grand prize by submitting what (not surprisingly) turned out to be uniformly silly videos of themselves doing touchdown-like victory dances. No product inclusions were required. (Unlike the winning entries in PepsiCo's massive "Crash the Super Bowl" crowd-sourced video contest, FSTG's weren't destined to be seen by 111 million Bowl watchers.)

"We don't have the same advertising dollars as other chip companies, but we do have a loyal fan base," says FSTG CEO and founder, Pete Lescoe. "We wanted a way to engage with them during a time when we knew they would be thinking about chips and snacking, so we invited all who wanted to get into the game to submit videos of their very own touchdown dances."

Launched Jan. 10, the contest pulled more than 80 submissions, 150,000 page views, and 30,000 votes in the few weeks leading up to the big game. Facebook "likes" also grew by about 2,000 (they now stand at about 145,000), according to the company.

The just-announced winner, Nathan Barnatt, captured fellow FSTG chip fans' votes by donning purple Spandex pants and a red crop-top and gyrating, doing flips and generally cavorting in settings ranging from a football field end zone to public venues to a broom closet and a men's room. (Barnatt plans to use the winnings to create additional comedic videos to help boost his entertainment career.) Runners-up received engraved footballs and other prizes, and all entrants got a 'thank you' bag of chips.

Other video entries featured a dancing baby in football sweats and a trio of dancing 'bananas.' A reel of goofy highlights from the video entries, as well as Barnatt's full, frenzied performance, are now viewable on the FSTG Facebook page.

Lescoe, a Babson MBA, launched this now fastest-growing natural chips brand by honing his own recipes, with input from family and friends.

FSTG's tortilla chips, which come in 10 varieties (including off-beat flavors like chocolate and olive) are trans fat-, cholesterol- and gluten-free, certified vegan, Kosher, high in fiber and low in sodium. They are sold nationally, in sizes ranging from 1.5 to 24 ounces, in major supermarket chains, Target and other retailers, as well as in Starbucks stores (average suggested retails for a six-ounce bag are $2.99 to $3.29), as well as in multi-bag packs on the brand's site and through Amazon and other online retailers.