Snacking while working comes with risks—especially when that snack is Cheetos. Chris Bellinger of PepsiCo Foods US and Eamonn Dixon of Goodby Silverstein & Partners share how this simple truth inspired a campaign that went viral.
Nearly everyone eats Cheetos with their dominant hand, leaving the other hand to handle everything else. The result? Orange powder, or “cheetle,” everywhere—and plenty of hilarious mishaps. This insight became the foundation for last year’s Other Hand campaign, part of Cheetos’ It’s a Cheetos Thing creative platform, which previously won a Cannes Lion Grand Prix for Creative Strategy.
The campaign used digital ads, stunts, and a partnership with NBA champion Jamal Murray to highlight the absurd fails that happen when snackers try to multitask with their non-dominant hand.
Perfectly Imperfect
The inspiration extended to the creative team itself. At Goodby Silverstein & Partners, designers found that even they couldn’t resist snacking with their dominant hand, leaving them challenged in new ways.
Enter the Cheetos Other Hand font—the world’s first typeface created entirely by a designer’s non-dominant hand. For a brand that thrives on playful chaos, it was a perfect fit.
Cheetos’ playful values resonate strongly with Gen Z, a generation that enjoys subverting norms. The goal of the font wasn’t to be intentionally bad, but to be fully authentic—embracing the quirks and inconsistencies of non-dominant handwriting while ensuring the typeface remained usable. After experimenting with thousands of characters and designs, the font was ready for the public.
Mischievously Messy
The launch coincided with National Handwriting Day. The font was made available on Cheetos.com, with design influencers helping spread the word. Consumers were encouraged to use the font in creative ways—at school, work, or personal projects—with the most playful applications shared on social media for a chance to win limited-edition Other Hand Cheetos bags.
To extend the fun, the team released a browser plug-in allowing users to swap any website’s font with Other Hand, turning headlines, charts, and intranets into something delightfully messy. A tongue-in-cheek video featured the designers discussing “the responsibility of design” while their fingers were covered in cheetle.
The results were remarkable. Without any paid media, the idea went viral, earning over 500 million impressions, tens of thousands of downloads, and an 11.8-point lift in social awareness for the campaign.
At its core, Other Hand celebrates a simple human truth: when most people snack with their dominant hand, everything else gets done imperfectly. The campaign underscores that sometimes, embracing mistakes—and a little chaos—can be the most impactful creative choice.
