Brave Brand Building

Cheetos celebrates 75 years of determined cultural mischief relevancy

Cheddar Cheese – flavours such as Ketchup, Pizza and most recently Sour Cream & Onion.

How has the brand stayed relevant?

The Cheetos consumer is always evolving and we’ve gone to great lengths to understand our consumer needs and show up for them in a way that is both fun and culturally relevant. Originally, we leaned on the brand’s mascot, Chester Cheetah, and were really geared towards family fun. However, only 22% of households that purchase Cheetos have kids, signalling a huge untapped opportunity for the brand to increase relevance and awareness with a broader set of adult consumers.

From the Cheetos Mouse to Chester, and slogans like “Cheese that Goes Crunch” to “Dangerously Cheesy”, Cheetos positioning has gotten bolder since the snack first launched in 1948. So, we wanted to know what’s in the Cheetos DNA that makes it so adventurous. strategy sat down with Jess Spaulding, CMO of PepsiCo Foods Canada, to get the scoop.

What is it about this brand that always makes it want to try new things?

The Cheetos brand is wired for fun and experimentation. We’re driven by our ambition to be more than just a delicious cheesy snack – we are a brand rooted in culture. You can see this through the evolution of our taglines. Both “Cheese that goes Crunch” and “Dangerously Cheesy” represented very functional aspects of the brand. Our new positioning “It’s a Cheetos Thing” speaks to the distinctive brand attributes that make Cheetos so playfully mischievous and unique, and it amplifies the “insider” knowledge. It’s a way to explain the unspoken bond our fans share; the people who get it.

For our fans, Cheetos isn’t just a snack, it’s a part of their life. And it’s this very insight that makes us want to push the boundaries and be daringly mischievous. We’ve seen that in the success of our new flavours that go beyond just

We made the shift to expand our target to the people who believe there’s always an opportunity to shake things up. Our goal is to fuel this fandom and build Cheetos into a brand inspired by its biggest fans. We’re always looking for new ways to engage, which is how we developed our recent Cheetle in Cheadle program.

In leaning into the very thing that makes Cheetos distinctly Cheetos – the distinctive orange dust – we decided to build a monument in celebration of it. The 17-foot statue of Cheetle covered fingers, dropped “anonymously” in Cheadle, Alberta is the kind of thing our cult goes crazy for. In fact, it had our fans talking about it in 28 different countries across the globe.

So, how do you get the tone right?

We target all Canadians with a similar mindset; adults that stay young at heart and don’t subscribe to the conventional definition of what it means to be a grown up. For us, this meant that we wanted to move away from speaking only to the functionality of our brand, to positioning our brand within culture and within the lives of consumers.

We know our fans are hungry to find new ways to interact with this delicious snack icon, so we push ourselves to think up culturally relevant ways that will speak to them.

Thank you all: Cossette, OMD, Scouts Honour, Skin & Bones, The Vanity, Rajakovic Electric, SNDWRX, Citizen Relations, Strategic Navigator, Undivided, No Fixed Address, Outsider Editorial, Alter Ego, Nimiopere, The Deli, and countless others.

Over the last six years, we would never have seen the success we have without your art, your craft, and your dedication. You’ve created the most-noticed, cared-about, fund-raising, & award-winning campaign in Canadian healthcare advertising history. But this campaign is about so much more than that. Hold this in your heart –what you’ve helped us achieve is even bigger.

Status quo doesn’t cut it anymore. Just look at how Canada’s top brands approach marketing to see how much has changed.

But how to achieve that next level? This year’s A-List – a cross-section of agencies that have proven their creativity and innovation strength on the awards circuit –show how advertising can have a meaningful impact on the world, while building brand equity and business.