2024 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Years of targeting families, often with childlike programming and an emphasis on the brand’s mascot, Chester Cheetah, had Canadians believing the iconic orange snack was just for kids. To appeal to parents, that also meant downplaying the most distinctive — and divisive — aspect of the product: the orange,
messy, indulgent dust.

But by 2022, Cheetos sales in Canada were beginning to plateau. The consumer had evolved — only 22% of households that purchase Cheetos have kids, signaling a huge untapped opportunity for the brand to increase relevance and top-of-mind awareness with adults. To do this, the brand needed to make a distinct strategy shift: from downplaying what consumers love most about the brand — the dust —
to celebrating it.

Anyone who has eaten Cheetos is familiar with the orange dust that ends up on their fingertips — it’s a polarizing, messy aspect of this iconic orange snack. Despite consumers’ complicated relationship with this orange-dust, it’s what makes Cheetos, well, distinctly Cheetos. The brand’s biggest fans know that orange-dusted fingertips are part of the Cheetos experience, but most Canadians (< 1.4%) know that there is an official name for the iconic orange dust, Cheetle. (Yup, it’s even in the dictionary.)

To increase relevance and TOM with their refocused adult target they needed snackers to not only embrace Cheetle, but to claim it as a badge of honour. To truly get thier fans attention, they needed to invite them — versus tell them — to join the Cheetle love. And what do they do with the things they love the most? Cherish them. Revere them. Build monuments to them.

In Canada, the province of Alberta has a particular penchant for oversized food landmarks — from giant mushrooms in Vilna to the world’s largest sausage in Mundare. So when Cheetos discovered a small Albertan hamlet (home to 83) called Cheadle, they saw an opportunity: build a monument to memorialize the orange dust, and place it in the town of a similar name, Cheadle.

Without notice (or frankly, any context) the brand installed a 17-foot-tall statue of Cheetle covered fingers along the main road of the town. On day one a few shocked residents took to social media to share their confusion at the sudden appearance of the statue. News spread quickly around the hamlet, then Alberta, then to the whole country. Before long thousands of fans were visiting the hamlet to get a glimpse of the statue. Some even traveled from out of province (one fan flew over 2,400km) for a chance to take a selfie with the “Cheetle in Cheadle”.

Several days later, when the Cheetos brand claimed the statue with a press release and media, Cheetos lovers’ excitement had already begun to reach a fever pitch. Knowing it would only in market for four weeks, the Cheetle statue quickly generated significant coverage by top-tier traditional media and Canadians came in droves. What began as a regional story went national, then North American… and before long became a global phenomenon. In October 2022,
Cheetle was EVERYWHERE.

This activation permeated culture in a significant way, with images of the statue and Cheetos fans all over TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram spanning personal accounts, media outlets, and even late-night TV. The breakthrough nature of the program allowed the execution to garner earned media in both traditional and non-traditional outlets relevant to the Young Adult target. Fans quickly added the statue to Cheadle’s Wikipedia page and designated it a “historical landmark” on Google Maps (the top-rated landmark in Alberta, no less). Hilariously, even actor Don Cheadle himself was inundated with requests by fans to visit the statue.

The campaign had 2.2 BILLION impressions from top tier global media coverage, from CNN, CBC, CTV and Global News to Seth Myers and Jimmys Fallon and Kimmel, plus outlets in 15 countries as far away as Australia, Cyprus, India, Philippines, Thailand, Russia, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia.

“Cheetle in Cheadle” also earned 1,111 traditional hits and 783 earned social hits, making it the most successful PepsiCo Foods Canada PR campaign in a decade, “Cheetle” mentions increased by 1,750% (awareness goal surpassed by… a zillion percent), there was a 17% shift in positive sentiment (for synonyms of Cheetos Dust vs 2021), a 47% increase in Regional sales of Cheetos Puffs snacks, a 23% increase in National sales of Cheetos Puffs snacks and the campaign delivered $33,057,999.09 in media value.

With just one statue, Cheetos drove significant growth by turning a weakness into a powerful, distinctive brand asset … Plus, Don Cheadle told Jimmy Kimmel he’d put the statue on his lawn. For real.

Credits

CCO: Josh Budd
Art Director: Shirley Xu Wang
Copywriter: Marly Dichter
Production: Frankie
Executive Producer: Dave Lembke
Fabricator: F&D Scene Changes
VP: Alexandra Green
Director: Emily Walker
Account Managers: Niki Javdan
Senior Account Executives: Alexandrea Smith
Account Executives: Katie Haller
SVP, Strategy: Lindsay Page
Senior Strategist: Malav Naik
Research Analyst: Shamshir Malik