• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, June 9, 2025

Who needs a Rorschach test when you can find meaning by pawing through a bag of Cheetos? Frito-Lay is freshening up the brand’s made-of-weird-shapes heritage with advertising for a new shape-of-the-week contest, offering $10,000 to lucky winners.

The spot, created in-house, features a patient at the therapist’s office in the middle of a Rorschach test, obsessed with Cheetos Shapes. As he cycles through different shapes, Chester Cheetah suddenly appears to reveal that the patient just ate one worth $10,000, and chaos ensues.

The contest will run for six weeks, with each week’s theme dropping on Fridays at noon on TikTok and Instagram. Fans can enter by buying themselves a bag of Cheetos and searching for the shape or downloading a digital version of the game. They can then share their version of the week’s find, with prizes awarded for either accuracy or creativity.

The Cheetos contest lands at a shaky moment for parent company PepsiCo. The snack-and-soda giant recently posted its first quarterly profit miss in five years, cut the 2025 earnings forecast, and reported a 2% drop in savory snack sales—despite price hikes. Executives blame higher supply chain costs and worsening consumer sentiment. Cheetos also faces mounting pressure to clean up ingredients, especially after Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to ban synthetic dyes. As sales soften and health concerns grow louder, fun-and-fluff campaigns like this face an uphill climb.

PepsiCo is trying to boost Frito-Lay sales by expanding into the away-from-home market with mini-meals and ready-to-eat formats, aided by acquisitions like Siete and Sabra. The CPG company is also leaning toward smaller packaging portions and better-for-you options like baked snacks with no artificial ingredients, but it says price cuts are off the table.

The company is hoping past shapely successes can give Cheetos a boost. In 2017, the brand scored a Gold Lion honor at Cannes for “the Cheetos Museum.” And this year, “Cheetozard” -- a Cheeto that looked like the Pokémon Charizard -- sold for nearly $90,000.

The brand is also working with influencers for the effort, including illusionist Zach King, to help bring the Shape Hunt to life with his imaginative blend of VFX and Cheetos magic. Fans can also buy Cheetos bundle products through specific Cheetos affiliate influencers on TikTok Shop during the contest window.