“The Cheetos Store. Seriously stylish. Seriously for sale.” An e-commerce storefront filled with playful, unique, Cheetos-inspired apparel and household items ripe for the gift-giving frenzy of the holiday season, the Cheetos Store marked the first time in Frito-Lay history that the company marketed beyond macrosnacks, and it demonstrated the Cheetos brand’s ability to stretch into lifestyle-brand territory.

The idea was created from the ground up to be a social engine, each component designed to generate chatter and shareability. Knowing that consumers would never expect this from a beloved cheesy snack, our goal was to ignite a conversation around the unbelievable fact that the Cheetos Store was indeed real and to convince the masses to purchase, wear and share the products.

The Cheetos Store temporarily transformed a snack brand into a luxury fashion retailer.To accomplish that,we honed in on a high-end campaign design and multiple touchpoints built to spur social chatter—with fans asking “Is this real?”

The e-commerce site launched November 18 during the hysteria of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, extending through December to keep with the height of holiday shopping.

Each element supported the narrative of unexpected luxury gifts. A launch video juxtaposed the Cheetos brand with the avant-garde nature of the fashion industry, featuring not-so-serious but seriously-for-sale items on the runway. We paired that with the first-ever shoppable Facebook ad unit used by a CPG company for easy tap-to-buy capability.

Additionally, influencers received a sneak-peek holiday catalogue and click-bait content sparked curiosity online.Our line up of stylish social ads highlighted the individual items, while driving traffic to the site and renewed the conversation each time one sold out.

Pioneering the first-ever storefront in the history of Frito-Lay to sell items other than snacks proved to be a worthy investment.

The Cheetos Store was picked up by more than 2,500 news outlets in the U.S. and abroad, including USA Today, Fox News, CNBC, Buzzfeed, Mashable, Thrillist, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Teen Vogue, Fast Company and Yahoo.

In six weeks, the store gained over 1.3 billion impressions and sold 93% of its inventory, including the US$20,000 jewelry set.

We dominated social conversation with consumers professing their obsession with our products and reinforcing their love of Cheetos. The buzz converted into snack sales, up 10.5% vs. a year ago*, proving we had regained footing in the holiday time period.

Our narrative disrupted the holidays and made Millennials look at Cheetos in a new light, unlocking a runway for growth outside salty snacks in a mischievous way.

*Source: IRI MULOC, Cheetos TM, 11/14-12/25/16