Frito-Lay has long been the purveyor of some of the world’s favorite snack foods, but their space has historically been in the grocery store’s chip aisle.
Lately, they’ve been trying to branch out of this niche with a variety of new products. To generate buzz for Mac N’ Cheetos (their latest offering, a mash-up of frozen macaroni and cheese nuggets coated in that delicious orange Cheeto powder) Frito-Lay needed to find a way to be taken (semi) seriously by top food bloggers. So their PR Agency, Ketchum, came to UviaUs to create the ultimate unboxing experience.
From the beginning, our team felt that it would be critical to generate buzz on social media organically, rather than incentivizing influencers to shill the product. That approach created a new set of challenges since influential food bloggers see promotional materials for thousands of new products every year.
To break into foodie circles dominated by craft cocktails, sourdough starters, and popup restaurants Mac N’ Cheetos would need more than your standard free sample.
The audience we needed to reach wouldn’t typically be running to the freezer aisle to try the newest frozen meal. So our team worked to create something that would be so impossible to ignore that it would overwhelm any biases the recipients may have toward frozen food–the mother of all buzz generation press kits.
To generate buzz that also leaves a lasting brand impression, every element of the kit had to be customized to the Mac N’ Cheetos brand. Each kit included a fully branded toaster oven, two packages of Mac n’ Cheetos packed in dry ice, a branded cooler bag, and a dedicated video player loaded with cooking instructions that did double duty as a timer for the toaster oven all packed inside a massive fully-branded mailer box.
To add an additional layer of interactivity and nostalgia, our team created a 16-bit style animated video based on the 1992 SNES game Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool. The video contained both the cooking instructions for the Mac N’ Cheetos as well as an animated timer. The video was included in the kit on a purpose-built tent-stand video player.
One of the best things about a social media campaign is that you don’t have to wait long to see the results. Within a few days, it was clear that we had sparked genuine excitement for Mac n’ Cheetos among influencers, validating the decision to generate buzz organically rather than paid influencers and celebrity spokespersons.
The 50 kits sent out generated posts from 30 unique influencers, with a total of over 1.3 million impressions on social media, including over 40,000 interactions and 8000 shares.
A major win for the campaign was scoring a featured post in Vice Magazine’s food blog, Munchies, a channel normally dedicated to finer dining and up-and-coming stars in the culinary space.
Frito-Lay has long been the purveyor of some of the world’s favorite snack foods, but their space has historically been in the grocery store’s chip aisle.
Lately, they’ve been trying to branch out of this niche with a variety of new products. To generate buzz for Mac N’ Cheetos (their latest offering, a mash-up of frozen macaroni and cheese nuggets coated in that delicious orange Cheeto powder) Frito-Lay needed to find a way to be taken (semi) seriously by top food bloggers. So their PR Agency, Ketchum, came to UviaUs to create the ultimate unboxing experience.
From the beginning, our team felt that it would be critical to generate buzz on social media organically, rather than incentivizing influencers to shill the product. That approach created a new set of challenges since influential food bloggers see promotional materials for thousands of new products every year.
To break into foodie circles dominated by craft cocktails, sourdough starters, and popup restaurants Mac N’ Cheetos would need more than your standard free sample.
Influencer posts generated
Interactions on social media
The audience we needed to reach wouldn’t typically be running to the freezer aisle to try the newest frozen meal. So our team worked to create something that would be so impossible to ignore that it would overwhelm any biases the recipients may have toward frozen food–the mother of all buzz generation press kits.
To generate buzz that also leaves a lasting brand impression, every element of the kit had to be customized to the Mac N’ Cheetos brand. Each kit included a fully branded toaster oven, two packages of Mac n’ Cheetos packed in dry ice, a branded cooler bag, and a dedicated video player loaded with cooking instructions that did double duty as a timer for the toaster oven all packed inside a massive fully-branded mailer box.
To add an additional layer of interactivity and nostalgia, our team created a 16-bit style animated video based on the 1992 SNES game Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool. The video contained both the cooking instructions for the Mac N’ Cheetos as well as an animated timer. The video was included in the kit on a purpose- built tent-stand video player.
Social shares
Consumers reached
One of the best things about a social media campaign is that you don’t have to wait long to see the results. Within a few days, it was clear that we had sparked genuine excitement for Mac n’ Cheetos among influencers, validating the decision to generate buzz organically rather than paid influencers and celebrity spokespersons.
The 50 kits sent out generated posts from 30 unique influencers, with a total of over 1.3 million impressions on social media, including over 40,000 interactions and 8000 shares.
A major win for the campaign was scoring a featured post in Vice Magazine’s food blog, Munchies, a channel normally dedicated to finer dining and up-and-coming stars in the culinary space.
Influencer posts generated
Social shares
Interactions on social media
Consumers Reached
