Do you spend your afternoons finding shapes in the clouds? Well, spend that time instead looking for shapes in your Cheetos and it could prove much more rewarding.

On July 11, Cheetos announced its “Win What You See” campaign, which rewards consumers for buying its infamous cheesy snacks by matching the shapes they find in their snack bag with a prize inspired by what they see.

Is your Cheeto shaped like a guitar? You could be rewarded with a top-notch Fender Stratocaster. See a palm tree? You might just find yourself with a free tropical vacation.

This isn’t the first time Cheetos has rewarded its fans for their creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. In May 2016, the company launched the Cheetos Museum, encouraging consumers to photograph any oddly-shaped Cheetos and share them on its website for a chance to win $50,000. The campaign lasted through the end of August and received more than 100,000 user submissions in just three months.

So, why is this campaign so wildly successful? Let’s look at it through a PR strategy lens:

Social media engagement

First and foremost, all of the content created through the campaign is visual and humorous, making it the perfect kind of social content for consumers to share with their own followers. It’s also engaging, meaning anyone can join in on the hype by sharing their own Cheetos shapes or by simply retweeting their favorite submissions from others.

In the first month following the launch of the Cheetos Museum campaign, the project’s title became a trending topic on Facebook, getting the contest in front of more than 1.45 billion active users and sparking even further conversation about the initiative. Additionally, the engaging video content produced by the company received more than 23 million views across social and traditional media platforms. As we’ve learned with our own clients, multimedia goes a long way in increasing interaction.

Website traffic

The next best thing about this campaign is that all of the content shared on social media can be traced right back to the company’s website. The Cheetos Museum campaign generated a hearty 525 percent increase in site traffic the first month after it launched with 1.47 million visits.

Consumers aren’t only led to the website to read the official contest rules and submit their photos – they’re exploring the best submissions and sharing the most amusing ones on their own social networks, helping spread the word without Cheetos even needing to lift a finger.

Media coverage

Anything that creates this big of a buzz on social media is bound to get some press coverage, and the Cheetos Museum contest certainly didn’t disappoint with its 4,831 media placements. From announcing the initiative to sharing the results to debunking the strategy behind the campaign’s success, this story certainly doesn’t give reporters a shortage of angles to use.

Sales, sales, sales

Perhaps the most ingenious part of the entire campaign is that in order to enter the contest, consumers first must obtain a bag of Cheetos. This leads consumers who might not normally purchase Cheetos as their snack of choice to dive into the hype by exploring Cheetos shapes for themselves. And, after all, isn’t that what PR is all about – helping a company meet its core business goals? The Cheetos Museum campaign led to the company’s strongest sales week EVER.

With a plethora of consumer engagement, increased website traffic and a higher number of sales by means of a simple contest, can anyone really argue that this campaign isn’t PR gold? Only time will tell if the “Win What You See” campaign is as wildly successful as the company’s first snack-shape-driven contest.

What do you think of Cheetos’ new campaign? Let us know in the comments below!