To the launch of Flamin’ Hot as a standalone brand, we knew we had to create a campaign that would connect directly with our predominantly gen-z audience in ways and platforms native to how they live their lives. Rather than relying on traditional media, we partnered with rap megastar Megan Thee Stallion to create her new commercially released single “Flamin’ Hottie.” For its music video, we teamed up with Snapchat to create a truly unique viewing experience –– by using AR to transform Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Doritos into bite-sized streaming platforms.

Flamin’ Hot has been an icon of snack aisles and the internet for almost three decades, but existed as a flavor not a standalone brand. It was time to give the brand its own creative platform and campaign. The challenge: our core audience (gen-z) doesn’t care about traditional advertising. We needed to find a way to break through to them with content that felt native to the platforms they use on a day-to-day (or even hour-to-hour) basis.

In its first-ever national brand campaign, Doritos® and Cheetos® Flamin’ Hot® needed to connect with its growing Gen-Z audience and unleash Flamin’ Hot brand’s rebellious spirit to a new generation. The only problem? Gen-Z doesn’t care about traditional advertising and purposefully ignores it.

Enter Megan Thee Stallion, rap megastar and global Gen-Z icon. The only thing this Grammy-winning artist may love as much as her "Hottie" fanbase? Flamin’ Hot snacks.

To appeal to our Gen-Z audience, Flamin’ Hot brand teamed up with Megan to create her new full-length, commercially released song: “Flamin’ Hottie.” But a song this hot needed an even hotter debut. In a first-of-its-kind partnership with Snapchat, we used machine learning and AR to transform Flamin’ Hot snacks into an exclusive streaming platform to watch the music video. All fans had to do was open the app and scan their snacks to access it.

The song was released in the same way Megan drops any of her hits and quickly became news across mainstream media, social chatrooms and blogs. But in thinking through how to further break through to our Gen Z fans we knew two things: one, they would readily have Flamin’ Hot snacks on hand, and two, they would have Snapchat downloaded on their phones.

Prior to launch we partnered with Snapchat to create ads that hyped that something big was coming and that fans should be ready to go with a bag of Doritos® or Cheetos® Flamin’ Hot® — in the off chance that they didn’t already have them. From there, we had to quickly teach them how to use it. We developed a brief tutorial on how to use “Snackable Screens” and drove them to the experience.

Megan Thee Stallion’s latest song, “Flamin’ Hottie,” was created in collaboration with legendary producer Mike Dean and record label 300 Entertainment. The song was released commercially (Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, and Amazon Music) and it immediately caught fire in pop culture and across the music industry.

For the music video’s release, we partnered with Snapchat to create a first-of-its-kind AR experience that transformed Flamin’ Hot snacks into an exclusive streaming platform. This was achieved by training a machine learning model to recognize Doritos and Cheetos Flamin Hot’ snacks in real-time, on mobile and through Snapchat – something that until very recently was only possible using a very powerful computer. Over 5,000+ Doritos and Cheetos snacks were entered into the data set used to train the machine-learning model. All fans had to do was open the app and scan their snacks to access it.

In the end, the partnership between Flamin’ Hot brand and Megan Thee Stallion generated unprecedented attention. As of April 18th, “Flamin’ Hottie” has already generated over 4 billion earned media impressions and is still being downloaded and streamed by fans across the globe.