OTHER HAND

Background: In recent years, the snack market has become increasingly competitive, with new brands offering more-nuanced flavors, varying intensity levels and healthier options to meet the evolving tastes of Gen Z and millennial consumers. As a legacy brand, Cheetos needed a way to stay relevant. The challenge: How could Cheetos breathe new life into its five-year-long-running campaign “It’s a Cheetos Thing” and stay top of mind in the increasingly crowded snack market? Creative Idea: By closely researching how hundreds of our consumers interact with Cheetos, we uncovered a staggering insight: 99% of them eat Cheetos with their dominant hand. For most brands, this stat wouldn’t mean much—but for Cheetos, it’s a game changer. It means that the hand people rely on most becomes completely covered in bright-orange Cheetos dust (a.k.a. Cheetle), forcing them to do everything else with their non-dominant hand. So we built an entire campaign around this simple yet relatable fact, showing what happens when people from all walks of life eat Cheetos with one hand and are left using their other, not-so-dextrous hand for everything else. And there was no shortage of hilariously relatable examples. Beyond reinforcing brand awareness, the campaign also highlighted another undeniable and relatable truth: Cheetos fans prioritize eating Cheetos over everything else, even if it leads to total chaos. Insights & Strategy: When we asked our consumers in research about their experience of eating Cheetos, we noticed a trend: Almost all of them ate Cheetos with their dominant hand, which meant they used their non-dominant hand to do everything else. From laundry to homework to their job, other tasks were relegated to the other hand so that Cheetos— and, more importantly, the delicious Cheetle—could be freely enjoyed. So when we arrived at the stat that “99% of people eat Cheetos with their dominant hand,” we put it front and center in our new campaign. Because most people think a lot about which snack they eat, but few think about how they eat it. Which led to a key question: What if we made people think about Cheetos by making them think about which hand they eat it with, and how they end up doing everything else with the other hand? Execution: Through a truly integrated campaign, we showed how this insight applies to all kinds of people—from barbers to surgeons to font designers to even NBA champion Jamal Murray. And across every execution, we used the same key stat: “99% of people eat Cheetos with their dominant hand. Even …” We launched with a TV campaign showing what happens when barbers, sketch artists, bakers, sports fans and dart players eat Cheetos with their dominant hand. Then, we showed what print ads and out-of-home media would look like if illustrators, calligraphers, photographers, ad copywriters and billboard installers had used their other hand. Next, we went viral with a billboard stunt in NYC, showing what happens when a driver tries to park their car using their other hand. And we made the Sphere in Las Vegas appear to be broken for the first time, as if its operator was using the other hand. But we didn’t stop there: We also created a brand-new font—designed entirely with the non-dominant hand—and made it available for people to download and use. And even more impressive? Thousands of people actually did. We even launched a Chrome Extension that replaced every font on the internet with the Other Hand Font. We also designed a limited-edition Cheetos bag, created entirely with the designer’s non-dominant hand, that we dropped in selected stores across the country and gave away to fans and influencers. Results: The response was overwhelmingly positive, with 100% positive or neutral sentiment. The campaign made headlines across hundreds of major media outlets—from TMZ to Fast Company—and even got picked up by meme accounts like @WhatIsNewYork, ultimately generating over 2.2 billion impressions and an 11.8 pt. lift in social awareness for the campaign on Meta. By highlighting our distinctive brand asset, we turned a simple behavioral insight into an entire campaign that made people think about the way they eat Cheetos. Which made them think about eating Cheetos. Which made them buy more Cheetos. Despite the savory-snack category declining by 0.58%, Cheetos sold 5,000,000 more bags (Cheetos core only) during the campaign compared to the prior period, growing its share in the category even amid the boom of new product releases. What started as an equity campaign evolved into a larger multiyear brand platform with many more executions to come.