This snack company attracted both tourists and locals with its mouthwatering campaign!

Thursday: Gorillas of Guerilla Marketing FROM THE DESK OF MILES EVERSON: Hi, everyone! Do you want to know why I’m drawn to guerrilla marketing? It’s because this marketing approach constantly pushes boundaries! Despite witnessing many creative campaigns, guerrilla marketing never fails to surprise me with its innovative strategies, offering unexplored avenues for brand promotion and advertisement. Today, let's explore another example of guerrilla marketing by a snack brand. Keep reading to learn more about this company’s larger-than-life campaign! CEO, MBO Partners Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute

This snack company attracted both tourists and locals with its mouthwatering campaign! In 2022, a snack company decided to spread awareness about its product’s powdery residue that cakes people’s fingers when they eat the product. To do this, the company built a 17-foot tall monument of the powdery residue! The larger-than-life statue in Alberta, Canada attracted not just widespread attention but also generated MASSIVE sales for the product! The name of this popular snack? Cheetos! Cheetos is a cheese-flavored, crunchy corn puff snack made by Frito-Lay. Tasty and widely beloved, the snack’s bright orange residue is also a quintessential characteristic of the product. Yet, in 2022, Frito-Lay found out that many people could not put a name to that orange dust! In online discussions, terms such as “Cheetos dust” and “Cheetos powder” were thrown around to describe the residue found in the popular snack. As it turns out, only a few people knew the orange dust’s official name: Cheetle. To make matters worse, the firm discovered that online sentiment towards the residue wasn’t positive, with many complaining about the thickness of the powder. Frito-Lay knew it had to do something big to shore up widespread, positive attention for the cheetle. After all, it’s an iconic part of Cheetos puffs. So, working with Toronto-based advertising agency Citizen Relations, the company secretly built a huge 17-foot tall monument in Cheadle, a hamlet in Alberta, Canada. What did the monument depict? A cheetle-dusted hand holding a piece of Cheetos! At first, many locals, including Cheadle residents, were confused. After all, who wouldn’t be after seeing a big statue of a hand holding a corn puff in the middle of a small village? Confusion was quickly replaced with awe, though, as locals and bystanders slowly warmed up to the monument. Dubbed as the “Cheetle in Cheadle,” Cheetos publicly claimed ownership of the statue, attracting more of the snack’s fans from all over Canada. With so many people sharing their pictures and videos of the cheetle, it garnered traditional news coverage all over North America as well as other countries such as India, the Philippines, and Australia. Additionally, the viral campaign went on to generate 2.2 billion social media impressions and over USD 33 million in media value. Amazing, right? Meanwhile, the sales of Cheetos puffs in Western Canada rose by 47%, while national sales rose by 23%. Skyrocketing sales and widespread attention solidified “cheetle” in the mainstream, with a 1750% increase in mentions on the web. Much to Frito-Lay’s relief, the campaign also culminated in a 17% increase in positive sentiment towards the orange dust. What else? The monument that was built was designated by its fans as a historical landmark on Google Maps. The Cheetle in Cheadle made history, indeed! — So, what made this marketing strategy work for Frito-Lay? First, the campaign name “Cheetle in Cheadle” is quite catchy. Rhymes are memorable, easily imprinting a product or a new term you want to market in people’s minds. Second, the marketers crafted a campaign fit for the chosen location. Cheadle—and by extension, Alberta province—is known for large, food-related statues. Citizen Relations, the partner advertising agency, explained: “Alberta, Canada has a history of building oversized food landmarks. So when Cheetos discovered a small Albertan hamlet called Cheadle, we saw an opportunity: build a 17-foot-tall monument to memorialize the orange dust in a town of a similar name.” The decision to place the cheetle monument in Cheadle led both locals and tourists to react positively to the snack monument. If it were any other town or location, the bombastic statue could have taken longer to generate a warm reception. So, if you want to create a memorable campaign that’s set up for monumental success, make sure to research your target audience and location well! Hope you’ve found this week’s guerrilla marketing insight interesting and helpful.     Do you want to know how this Lebanese newspaper publication advocated for the freedom of the press in 2022? See it in next week’s article!