Our target Millennial families reject the expected and are unwilling to let their responsibilities slow their need for fun. Their love for gifts that express their personalities inspired us to create relevance for Cheetos in a cluttered season by latching onto gift-giving.

We launched the Cheetos Store with our usual mischief, spoofing the fashion industry with fashionable Cheetos-inspired gifts. In order to amplify the shareable “Cheetos did what?” factor, it was important that we designed and produced items not as novelties but rather as credible high-end gifts.

The quintessential embodiment of that amplification strategy was a US$20,000 one-of-a-kind jewelry set designed to put the social conversation and PR media outreach momentum into overdrive. The inspiration was the centennial Panthére de Cartier collection, which pioneered the marriage between opulence and a quirky personality. Ours would embody identifiable features of our mascot, Chester Cheetah, produced with high-quality materials by a reputable jeweler.

The final set was created in 18-karat gold, encrusted with sapphires as orange as our cheesy snacks, as well as with over 190 white and black diamonds. The design is reminiscent of the fluid movements of our mascot Chester Cheetah’s tail wrapping gently around sapphires, framed by rings of white diamonds.

Cheetos is a brand on a mission to look at the world with playful eyes. The large sapphires at the center of our ring and earrings represented our brand color and resembled the Cheetah’s eyes locked magnetically on its prey — a bag of dangerously cheesy Cheetos snacks. The name “Eye of the Cheetah,” however, was created as a mischievous spoof of the way the fashion industry takes its appeal to glamour ultra-seriously, often with unintentionally funny results in the over-the-top way it names its products.

Only one set was produced. That uniqueness was essential in achieving what proved to be a successful two-stage media outreach story: the first about the daring decision by Cheetos in selling a $20,000 jewelry set and the second when someone actually purchased it.

We began by enlisting a jeweler known for handcrafting one-of-a-kind jewelry through a lost-wax casting process that destroys the mold during casting, ensuring the pieces can’t be reproduced.

After several meetings, the design was refined and approved. But first we needed to secure large orange sapphires. The gem encrusted on the ring was the largest of its kind available in the market at the time.

The set was cast in 18-karat yellow gold. The ring featured the 4.7-carat orange sapphire. The earrings featured matching stones weighing in at a total of 2.89 carats. The entire set was encrusted with over 190 black and white diamonds weighing a total of 3.0 carats and creating the illusion of spots on a cheetah’s tail.

As our accompanying catalogue stated, “This set is truly one of a kind. Seriously, there’s not another set in the world, and there very well may never be.”

The Cheetos Store program, with the Eye of the Cheetah jewelry set as its focal point, generated solid brand-equity

results and returned the brand to consumers’ minds in a season when salty snacks struggle for relevance. It also pioneered the first-ever storefront in the history of parent company Frito-Lay to sell items other than snacks, creating a new growth opportunity for a mature brand already dominant in its category.

Results:

• 2,500 media outlets covered The Cheetos Store

• 1.3 billion overall program PR impressions

• US$20,000 Eye of the Cheetah jewelry set was sold on day 3. Its sale generated a second wave of media coverage.

• Sales of Cheetos snacks lifted during the promotional period to the tune of 10.5% vs. the previous year

• 534,000 unique visitors to the website

• Highest engagement rate to date on social posts for Cheetos as a brand

Cheetos is a category-leading brand with high affinity and loyalty, but its salty snacks category faced pressures during the cluttered holiday period when consumer priorities tend to turn to traditional holiday meals, bargain-hunting, gift-giving and sweet seasonal treats. Our challenge was to continue to further our brand of mischievous play while unlocking more growth potential for the Cheetos brand in a period when salty snacks struggle with sales and relevance.

We created relevance where none existed for a salty snack brand by “hacking” gift-giving with the launch of an e-commerce store featuring Cheetos-inspired fashion and household items.

The star item in our store was a one-of-a-kind, high-end jewelry set designed for maximum social shareability and to enable PR outreach. We called that set “Eye of the Cheetah.”