Having a little fun is serious business. The Cheetos brand plays in the highly competitive $124 billion North American snack food category, where the coveted ingredient is pop culture credibility: who’s hot and who’s not? Adding to the challenge are millennial customers who expect the unexpected, and media targets who don’t always play along.

For years Cheetos has been represented by mascot Chester the Cheetah, and his persona of likeable mischief. While Chester had become a recognizable brand icon, he had yet to score his pop culture moment. The agency set out to break him from the pack. We realized that to be famous you have to act famous. So we gave Chester what every self-respecting superstar demands: a celebrity fragrance.

Introducing Cheeteau, the limited edition cheese-infused cologne that captures Chester’s true essence.

The press pounced: you gotta be kidding. We weren’t. Having timed the announcement to April Fools’ Day, America’s prankster holiday, we cooked up two waves of earned publicity. Major media had fun sniffing out what they believed to be a hoax. Then the very real bottle of Cheeteau arrived on their desks. Meanwhile, we indulged Cheeteau with sampling events in Los Angeles and New York and an explosion of digital chatter.

Hailed as one of the best pranks in recent memory, Cheeteau racked up nearly a billion earned impressions in just four days, while Chester flirted with his newfound celebrity on Twitter. Not to mention the “rare” bottle of Cheeteau that sold for $97 on eBay, proving the scent of Cheetau still lingers.

We made Cheeteau the real deal, partnering with Demeter Fragrance Libraries to create a timeless, enchanting bouquet evoking the sensual cheesiness of one of America’s favorite snacks. We began spreading news of Cheeteau through cryptic press materials, dramatized by mock perfume print and digital ads posted to Cheetos’ social channels. The news was met with a wary eye — as planned — with media speculating on the April Fools’ timing. Even PR Newswire questioned the validity of our press release, putting it on hold for two days for verification.

Then we showed everyone that Cheeteau was no joke. Much to everyone’s disbelief, mailers containing a real 90ml bottle of Cheeteau and a scratch and sniff print ad were delivered the day before April Fools’. Suddenly, the Cheeteau hoax was true, creating a story media couldn’t wait to share. We legitimized the launch with sampling in New York and Los Angeles, and gave bottles away on Chester’s social media channels.

In just four days, news of Cheeteau earned the Cheetos brand 937 million media impressions. Chester and Cheeteau owned the day in the April Fools’ media conversation, grabbing the national spotlight on The TODAY Show, Good Morning America, CNN Inside Edition, USA Today, BuzzFeed, TIME, the Los Angeles Times, PopSugar Food, Huffington Post Taste, the New York Post, and the New York Daily News among others. Ninety-five percent of all coverage prominently mentioned Chester the Cheetah, and 93% of coverage associated Chester/Cheetos with mischievous fun, successfully reinforcing the brand’s personality with millennial families. Eighty-two percent of outlets included either the Cheeteau digital video, mock ad or product image. Traditional and social media hailed Cheeteau for being one the best April Fools’ pranks by a major brand.

And while Chester flirted with his newfound celebrity on Twitter, a bottle of Cheeteau sold for $97 on eBay -- a sign that our mischievous mascot had truly achieved a new level of pop culture fame.