“THE” Snack To Look Out For In The World of Virtual Reality
It started with automobile brands, then fashion and luxury brands and then entered the food and beverage industry on to the Metaverse. Let’s take a look at what one of the most known chips brand globally — Cheetos is doing in the world of virtual reality.
We hear a new brand name joining the Metaverse almost everyday. Brands are able to create their own virtual world or space that consumers can visit and explore in the metaverse. It gives them an opportunity to control the customer experience and create a space tailored just for their brand. In October 2022, Frito-Lay unveiled their new Cheetos-themed digital suburban neighborhood called Chesterville, set inside one of the Meta’s Horizon Worlds — Meta Quest. Frito-Lay is the $10 billion convenience food division of PepsiCo, Inc., and this is the brand’s first venture into virtual reality.
What is Cheetos doing on Metaverse with Meta Quest?
Chester Cheetah and Cheetos made their entrance in Metaverse through virtual reality for Halloween this year. They called it a chesterville. Chesterville was the first venture into virtual reality for both Cheetos and the iconic Frito-Lay® snack portfolio. They created a digital suburban neighborhood unlike any place — real or virtual — that Cheetos fans have visited before. They came up with all sorts of tricks and a chance to bring a flavor back to life in the real world for a limited time period on the shelves of supermarkets. The flavors include Cheetos Flamin’ Hot Chipotle Ranch, Cheetos Flamin’ Hot Pepper Puffs, or Cheetos Nashville Hot snacks.
What intrigued me about this move?
Cheetos made an experience set in virtual reality but with real life gain. What I liked about this campaign is that they decided to actually bring back a flavor of the choice of their consumers. Even in the virtual reality, they made sure to listen to their consumer’s demands which is a rule #1 for all the brands out there. An experience with purpose. The other part of the campaign that intrigued me was that while they entered the Metaverse through virtual reality, they also ran this campaign on their social media accounts as well. They basically tried to run the campaign on all digital platforms possible for a higher reach of audience.
Was Chesterville a successful campaign?
The game was live for almost 20 days. Cheetos posted a lot of hints for the players playing the game on their different social media channels. On November 3, they finally took to their social media handles to announce that they brought back the Flamin’ Hot Chipotle Ranch flavor in retail stores for a very limited time period. While this might have helped Cheetos become one of the brands that are up to date with all the trends, the Meta’s flagship metaverse Horizon Worlds struggle to attract and retain users. Which can also be the reason why they also marketed this campaign to all consumers who were not present on the platform.
Is the Virtual Reality in Metaverse trend here to stay?
While many brands are continuing to experiment with metaverse-like experiences, participation in the space may be lacking. According to Meta documents recently reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, although the company aimed to reach 500,000 monthly active users in Horizon Worlds by end of year, the figure currently stands at less than 200,000. Additionally, just 9% of worlds are visited by at least 50 people, with most remaining vacant. Brands have thus far leaned on other VR gaming or browser-based platforms to dip their toes into virtual reality experiences.
