120,000 People Peered Inside the Bag / CHEETOS "CHEETOS MUSEUM"

The problem

With a 76.9% market share and sales growing for nine straight years, share had gone flat. The category leader's problem was that it had no reason for people to buy other than "eat more." Meanwhile, on social media, a game of finding and posting weirdly-shaped Cheetos had already sprung up on its own.

The insight

People feel a little thrill when they spot a pattern in something random. A treasure hunt with a big payoff for little effort is the kind of thing people can't help but get hooked on. The winning move was reframing something that was really just a quality variation—the fact that every piece comes out a different shape—as "one-of-a-kind art."

The idea

They opened the CHEETOS Museum. Over the summer, they called on people to hunt for "the most surprising shape," inviting posts of pieces that resembled things like the Eiffel Tower or the Venus de Milo, judged weekly, with prize money for the winners. The agency's own creatives dug through huge piles of bags themselves, found pieces resembling Lincoln and the Loch Ness Monster, and put them on display like a real museum.

What happened

The campaign was picked up by Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Today, and the video racked up 23 million views. It trended on Facebook, with 127,717 shapes submitted and site visits up 525% over normal. A piece resembling Harambe sold on eBay for about $100,000, and market share rose 1.5%. The campaign won five Gold Lions at Cannes Lions.

Afterthought

The sheer force it takes to turn something as simple as "open the bag and look inside" into a treasure hunt that got more than 120,000 people obsessed is wild. Turning a quality variation into a beloved cultural event—and making it actually drive sales—is something else. I feel like I won't be able to stop digging through bags myself from now on.

Awards

• Cannes Lions Gold 2017

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