Vayner3 Creates 'Phygital' Integration For Chester Cheetah On Meta

If you are a fan of cheesy, crunchy snack foods then you are probably aware of Chester Cheetah, the Cheetos official cartoon mascot of Frito-Lay North America, the $19-billion convenient foods division of PepsiCo, Inc. PEP.

Chester Goes To The Metaverse: Cheetos is sending Chester into the metaverse this Halloween, as they unveiled a new virtual Chesterville. 

The new Chesterville is appropriately creepy in a kid-friendly haunted house way, and Chester seems to be there to accomplish a little bit of necromancy — bringing a Cheetos flavor back from the dead.

Set in Meta Horizon Worlds platform, the spooky Chesterville challenges players using Oculus VR to complete tasks and earn points on their mischief meter. The goal is to gain access to Chesterville’s spooky mansion where they will have the chance to vote to resurrect their favorite “ghost of Cheetos’ past.”

Players can vote on Cheetos Flamin' Hot Chipotle Ranch, Cheetos Flamin' Hot Pepper Puffs, and Cheetos Nashville Hot snacks, bringing back one retired flavor of the cheesy snack for a limited run. The others, we assume, writhe in purgatorial non-existence until next Halloween. 

Vayner3's First Horizon Worlds Activation: It’s clear that major brands are looking for new ways to meaningfully engage with users online, and metaverse offers chances to create and monetize the experience. The technology is so new, few internal big-brand marketing departments are ready to go it alone. Many major brands have turned to Vayner3. 

We interviewed Katrina Gamueda-Smith, chief of staff for Vayner3, to discuss the creepy holiday snack food activation. Gamueda-Smith will be speaking regarding the future of digital ownership at Benzinga’s Future of Crypto summit Dec. 7 in New York City. 

“Chesterville is so exciting because it's Vayner3's first activation with Meta's Horizon Worlds and we couldn't be more excited to have partnered with the team at Cheetos. The entire game centers around making your way to the spooky mansion at the top of the hill, allowing players to vote on a flavor to bring back to life. This turns the Cheetos activation into a "phygital" one where your digital actions result in physical, realized rewards, making your time at play more substantive and meaningful,” Gamueda-Smith said.

Vayner3 Goes Virtual: Nada Stirratt, vice president of global business group at Meta Platforms Inc. META said: "Forward-thinking brands are beginning to build immersive experiences, and we're thrilled that Cheetos is leading the pack with their launch of Chesterville. We can't wait to see how users everywhere embrace their inner Chester Cheetah this Halloween and beyond."

In interviews from 2021, Gary “Vee” Vaynerchuk expressed doubt about metaverse integrations, saying the technology wasn’t established enough, but now the demand and infrastructure is there for Vayner3 to go beyond NFT drops into whole-cloth virtual experiences for its clients.

“Vayner3 believes in the powerful potential of ownership that the blockchain creates. We're seeing massive adoption of Web2-native digitized worlds and experiences, which encourages the importance of ownership in a metaverse environment,” Gamueda-Smith said.

This story is part of the Benzinga Future of Crypto 2022 summit-related content. 

Some of the best minds and most important projects in Web3 will be in attendance, including Vayner3, Rarible, Cosmos, Osmosis, Pixel Vault, Yuga Labs, Solana, Laguna Labs, and Algorand.

Cover image source: Frito-Lay/PepsiCo.