Mario Cuomo, Ann Richards Concede to Doritos
Late former governors of NY, TX starred in a 1994 snack chip ad.
Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one? The year 1994 saw one of the oddest mergers of politics and commerce when snack chip Doritos hired then-recently defeated incumbent Democratic governors Mario Cuomo of New York—who passed away Thursday at the age of 82—and Ann Richards of Texas, to unveil their new flavor and bag design.
“Change can be exciting,” Cuomo says to Richards as he helps her pack up her office. Of course, Cuomo was speaking of the new bag, but it's impossible to avoid reading that line as something of an understatement, given that Richards' successor was George W. Bush.
It’s difficult to say if the commercial had any direct effect on Doritos’ rebrand, but it did inspire a short but scathing New York Times critique.
