Cheetos, they're WEIRD!

An analysis of the Cheetos strategy seems like something that should come from the big wigs. And by 'Big Wigs', I mean creative directors working the Wig Company account. 

Now, I love my weird attempts in the world of advertising. I love seeing what comes out of people's minds when they realize they're allowed to just be out of their skulls. Sometimes its beautiful, sometimes disturbing, but always well worth the journey. 

BUT, it goes without saying that interpreting the weird must still inevitably come back to the product in some way. Because its still an ad, not art. And so you still have to be simple despite the weird.

I commend Cheetos for trying the weird. But seriously? Whoever sold them this idea came in with the opening line "Weird sells. I know this because I'm 'weird'. And as an expert, I also know that you can't have too much 'weird'. Budget costs? Recession? No, no! Don't worry, in the world of 'weird' you don't even have to try that hard. Because the rough look makes it more 'WEIRD'. Its what the target likes! They like that whole pasted together, "urban-street" look. Its WEIRD! It reminds them of parties and being super "boss". Trust me, more weird means more revenue. Lets get on this, duuuude."

And then they hired on a bunch of interns and had them go to town. Although there are a few things I really liked about this site for the most part it looked as though they gave the 13 interns and 1 real but annoyed art director only two weeks to paste it together. I understand that there are time crunches and indecisiveness with introducing a new brand but Cheetos.com is so poorly polished that I'm left wondering if their still working on it while the site is running.