Megan Thee Stallion and Nickelback team up to give Spicy Pickle Cheetos a boost
To get people to eat snacks loaded with spicy pickle flavor, the folks at Frito Lay have to get themselves out of an actual pickle.
The dilemma is this: Snack giant Frito-Lay is reviving its Cheetos Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle flavored edition and launching Cheetos Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle Puffs. To do this, the PepsiCo unit aims to capture the attention of younger consumers on social and digital media, where interactive technology fuels scrolling, swiping and other behaviors with short attention spans.
How can the company get fast-paced media pundits to stay the course?
Frito-Lay enlisted Megan Thee Stallion and Nickelback to collaborate on a new music video that combines winking humor, special effects and a remake of the 2001 hit “How You Remind Me,” with some new wrinkles pioneered by Megan Thee Stallion. The go-for-broke concept, which includes a high-tech heist, a high-speed truck chase and a massive explosion of Cheetos dust, shows the level to which marketers must rise to capture consumer attention in media venues that constantly offer new incentives.
The idea, says Chris Bellinger, chief creative officer at PepsiCo Foods US, is to get younger consumers not only to pay attention but also to pass the video on to their friends. “What we’ve seen is that I can buy a view, but I can’t buy a like and I can’t buy a comment. And I certainly can’t buy a share,” says the director. “I want to get the text message from someone or someone to text someone else and say, ‘You gotta check this out. You’re not going to believe what Cheetos just did. You’re not going to believe Nickelback, and Megan Thee Stallion singing about Cheetos Flaming Hot Dill Pickle. Watch this.’ Yes. That is worth gold to us.”
Spectacular one-off commercials can certainly generate viral buzz. In 2003, Pepsi started the conversation by creating a standout commercial for international markets that featured Beyonce, Britney Spears and Pink as Roman gladiators fighting in the Colosseum to the sounds of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” Enrique Iglesias appeared as a cruel emperor whose plans were thwarted by the musical warriors. Because the ad was not run through U.S. media buys, Americans became curious about the rare gathering of artists.
Frito-Lay first introduced its spicy dill pickle Cheetos as a limited-edition flavor last February. But pickle, Belinger says, “is a polarizing flavor” that has as many fans as detractors. For those who loved the snack, “You’ve got this spicy element and you’ve got the salty safety of the dill pickle.” Packages of the original offering sold out and were even listed on eBay for $60, Bellinger says. Executives noticed the constant talk on social media about the flavor, and Megan Thee Stallion was such a big fan that she was seen in public pairing Flamin Hot’ Cheetos with real pickles.
Getting Megan Thee Stallion and Nickelback to work wasn’t as difficult as it seems. The request and combination were so unusual that both artists quickly agreed to participate, and the band took over writing duties after Frito-Lay staffers first tried their own hand with a parody of their 2001 song.
More bizarre elements were thrown into the mix. With the song in expert hands, Dave Meyer, the commercial’s director, asked to add other off-color elements, including a storyline about Nickelback and Megan stealing new Cheetos from a safe and loading them into a giant truck that would also serve as their getaway vehicle. “I got more and more permission to keep letting go of the crazy,” says Meyers.
Ultimately, Bellinger says, Frito-Lay created a minute-long version of the video, as well as shorter clips. The goal “is not necessarily to get you to buy the product on the spot, but to go online and find the full issue, because we want this to be an earworm,” he says.
In recent years, Frito-Lay has raised the bar in video advertising and worked to create concepts that deserve extra attention. For example, in 2019 the company launched a holiday commercial touting all of its many snacks, including Ruffles and Tostitos. Anna Kendrick worked her way through an updated version of ‘My Favorite Things,‘ with lyrics such as ‘Eating Doritos on large comfortable couches’ and ‘Secret Santa with family and Cheetos.’ In 2024, the company teamed up with Disney’s ABC in a bold attempt to grab attention: Frito-Lay bought a third of ABC’s entire Friday national ad inventory so the snack giant could run — and re-run — eight different commercials for Lay’s chips that featured actor Stephen Tobolowsky living through a scenario similar to the one from the 1993 comedy “Groundhog Day.”
Bellinger hopes to stay big, with commercials. “The worst possible scenario is that no one pays attention,” he says. “And no one remembers what you did.”
