Like many other brands, Cheetos wanted to associate itself with up-and-coming stars. The goal was to create a campaign that appealed to younger audiences.

But in a world where brands spend $2.5 billion every year making celebrities the faces of their products, we needed to do something different to stand out in a sea of celebrity faces. Especially since our most notorious brand asset has nothing to do with your face. It’s the orange dust (a.k.a. Cheetle) that gets on our customers’ fingertips.

So we decided to flip the world of celebrity sponsorships on its head (or, rather, on its “hands”).

Celebrities are usually the face of a brand. Well, unless that brand is Cheetos.

Cheetos snacks are famous for leaving orange dust on your fingers. And Cheetos has created countless campaigns owning this distinctive asset. But in 2023, we did something no other brand could do. We introduced “Sponsortips,” the world’s first fingertip sponsorship deal.

We launched the campaign by hiring actor Simu Liu and showcasing his Cheetle-covered fingertips in TV, print and OOH. But instead of just making a traditional advertising campaign, we wanted to take “Sponsortips” into the real world. So that’s what we did.

Sponsorships often require celebrities to wear products like sneakers or clothes out in public. So we got Simu to “wear” Cheetos dust on his fingertips, while sitting courtside during an NBA basketball game. So when he waved to the cameras, he proudly showcased his orange fingers—turning it into a promotion for Cheetos.

These days, many brands sponsor celebrities to endorse their products. It’s the quickest way to win the hearts and minds of consumers.

Our target audience is what we call Rejuveniles—Gen Zers and millennials who, despite their age, have a young mindset. To grab their attention, a traditional celebrity endorsement wouldn’t be enough. We needed to do something much more modern and mischievous.

And since our most iconic asset is the Cheetos dust that gets on your fingertips, we decided to hire a celebrity to become the fingertips of our brand. In fact, our ads purposely tried to hide their face, putting a mischievous spin on typical sponsorships that our target would notice.

This campaign would culminate with an appearance by Simu Liu at a Toronto Raptors game with his fingertips covered in Cheetle, creating a viral PR moment that would spread across TV and social.

In July 2023, we launched in the US market, sponsoring the fingertips of Latin pop star Becky G. In September. We followed up by sponsoring the fingertips of Hollywood star Simu Liu in the Canadian market.

Each celebrity launched the sponsorship on their social feeds, announcing it to their millions of fans. Then their fingertips started showing up everywhere their faces would usually go: billboards, social platforms, “leaked” paparazzi photos. All supported by a series of online social videos.

We also worked directly with gossip magazine Hello! Canada to create an alternate cover for their November 11th issue, featuring Simu Liu and his orange-fingertips.

And on February 14th, 2024, we hijacked the spot where all celebrities go to be seen, when Simu showed up courtside at an NBA basketball game, waving his orange-fingertips. The stunt made it into the live TV broadcast and took social media by storm.

The world’s most unique sponsorship got attention from both the media and our fans, with over 2 billion earned-media impressions. It also received 99% neutral and positive sentiment online.

In Canada, Cheetos Crunchy, our core product, achieved 24% sales growth year over year.

And by focusing on our iconic orange dust, we were able to stand out from the competition, with brand recall a whopping 34% higher than our CPG competitors.

The campaign also made a splash in pop culture and was covered by major media outlets like Forbes, People magazine, E!, Billboard magazine, Access Hollywood and many others.

And after our campaign launch, Kim Kardashian appeared on the cover of GQ magazine licking her own Cheetle-covered fingertips, which we didn’t even have to pay for.

“Sponsortips” was such a success, it has now become a global platform for the brand, with more famous fingertips to come in 2024.