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For Lay’s Global “No Lay’s No Game” 2023 Campaign, the brand enlisted Ad Age’s Small Agency of the Year winner, Slap Global. Their first spot featured UEFA Champions League star Thierry Henry surprising FC Barcelona fans at their home on game day. The catch? He would only join them to watch the match if they had Lay's chips at home. Fans were understandably bummed when they were Lay’s-less, and to musically portray this despair, Slap called BUTTER to create a cover of a classic ballad that unequivocally evokes sadness: Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself”. Slap had BUTTER pitch the concept to the brand, which we were happy to do; we prefer when agencies bring music into the project at its genesis, especially when it anchors the impact of the campaign. This campaign had multiple versions which we detail in this write up. We are showing you the Lionel Messi version, a :30, for consideration of your time!

In this case, because the music worked so hand in hand with the campaign and tagline, the only factor that evolved from the pitch to the final was the addition of live instrumentation. To pull off the over-the-top ballad, we brought on none other than the musical comedy mastery of our CCO and Founder Andrew Sherman, who arranged and sang on the BUTTER cover. His vocal performance perfectly encapsulated the campy melodrama of the genre, so much so that the agency decided to keep him as the final singer on the project. Some may say, it was a Lay-up (pun intended).

Given the international reach of the Lay's brand, the campaign expanded to feature a range of additional players and markets. Including the English :30 cut-down featuring Lionel Messi.
Furthermore, Spanish, LATAM, and Colombian-specific versions were needed, as well as Brazilian Portuguese. While usually tricky for any music company to find vocalists who could cover all these niche dialects, we were up for the task! We ultimately cast for and sourced authentic vocals for these versions as well, including featuring vocalists from Dancing With The Stars and Pixar’s Coco.

After the ad’s airing it garnered nearly 100 individual press hits, 374M+ UVM (unique monthly visits in total, across all press hits), and nearly 10M YouTube views as a comprehensive campaign. Muse by CLIO editor David Gianatasio wrote, “The soundtrack sells it. Adapting Eric Carmen's marvelously morose ‘All by Myself’ with a chorus of ‘No Lays, No Game’ weirdly resonates.” By December 2023, the campaign ranked on numerous “Top Ads of 2023” lists, including Ad Age’s own Top 40 Ads of the Year for 2023.