2023-09-15 02:50:56
They have the chips, but they have also inspired songs. Sweatshirts, socks and pants. Restaurants. Entire TikTok characters. And now, until Eva Longoria’s latest film.
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, or Flamin’ Hot Cheetos as they are colloquially called, have transcended the supermarket aisles and become a cultural icon for Latinos, even spawning entire TikTok characters.
“There are so many Hispanic consumers in the United States who love these types of flavors that there was no way to go wrong with these types of products,” explains Marina Filippelli, CEO of Orci, a multi-segment and marketing agency in Los Angeles.
Filippelli doesn’t work in marketing for the Frito-Lay brand, but he has spent enough time—more than 25 years—in the multicultural marketing industry to know what U.S. Hispanic consumers like to eat. And spicy appetizers are one of those things.
“US Hispanics really rate higher on spicy snacks, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, as well as Takis and all the other smaller brands,” Filippelli said. “[Flamin’ Hot Cheetos] “They seem to have a very strong foothold, and I think they just really understand the power of their brand.”
WHY ARE THEY SO POPULAR?
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos entered the US market in the early 1990s, and it was precisely the timing of their arrival that helped make them so popular among US Latinos.
“It wasn’t easy to go to the grocery store or the supermarket and buy something like that. At that time, in the ’90s, we had mostly the basic flavors of chips and maybe fried tortillas, and maybe Doritos with cheese,” according to Filippelli .
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos were the first spicy snack mass-marketed to Americans. And it was its spicy profile, with chili powder, that attracted Latinos, especially those of Mexican descent.
“The majority are Mexican-American, but many Hispanics in the US come from countries where they are accustomed to a different palate,” explains Filippelli. “They are used to different flavors, especially in Mexico. Obviously, [tienen] a lot of spicy flavors in the food, so there was an opportunity to really get into the space and get a foothold because there really was nothing [similar] that was arriving in the United States at that time.
At the same time that the spicy appetizer was entering the American market, the United States was experiencing a boom in its Mexican population. From 1990 to 2000, the population of foreign-born Mexicans more than doubled, reaching 9.2 million people, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Today, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos is part of the $262.2 billion-a-year salty snack industry in the United States. Information regarding Flamin’ Hot is hard to find, but in a 2022 interview with Eater, Frito-Lay claimed that the spicy snack segment had grown 12% over the past four years. The company also claimed that more than 50% of Americans had tried Flamin’ Hot Cheetos at some point. We have contacted Frito-Lay for comment on this news, but have not received a response.
“Frito-Lay has incorporated Hot Cheetos – and the brand – and the product itself into different areas of consumer lifestyles,” says Filippelli. One way to do this is with powder.
If you’ve recently talked to someone who has eaten Hot Cheetos, your fingers will give you away. These chips are known to leave a lingering red tint on the fingers of the person eating them.
The granulated red powder literally leaves a mark, and it is something that entrepreneurs, specifically those in the food sector, have been able to take advantage of. There are Hot Cheeto corn dogs, Hot Cheeto elote, Hot Cheeto sushi, and even Hot Cheeto cookies. A Southern California restaurateur didn’t think twice before adding Hot Cheetos to his Mediterranean-Mexican fusion restaurant in Downey, California.
“The idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos came from my daughter Fatima,” explains Ali Elreda, owner of Fatima’s Grill. “One day he said to me, ‘Why don’t you try putting some Flamin’ Hot Cheetos on something? It took a while. We had to throw away a lot of bags of tortillas because we didn’t perfect it the way we wanted.’
But once they perfected it, it was a success. The result? A Flamin’ Hot Cheetos burrito loaded with carne asada, sour cream, cilantro, and nacho cheese.
“We have people flying in from Chicago,” Elreda says. “We have people that come from London, from Canada. We have people that come from Fresno. We think it’s not just because of Instagram and stuff, but our presence on TikTok is crazy. You know, with 1.1 million followers. We live in a generation in which we eat, sleep and drink through our mobile phones, and people want to be like that, do this and eat that.”
A customer named Monica said she drove two hours because her daughter saw the restaurant’s food on social media.
“Growing up, that’s what we had, Hot Cheetos,” Monica said. “It was what it was. We ate a lot of Mexican food, hot sauce. We might as well have permanent red fingers.”
Due to the success of the burrito, Elreda decided to incorporate Flamin’ Hot Cheetos into birria tacos, burgers, and basically any dish where customers wanted the spicy red bite. The restaurant offers ground Cheetos, but also has dishes, like the burrito, in which the Cheetos maintain their original shape.
LA CHICA ‘HOT CHEETO
While it’s no surprise that Flamin’ Hot Cheetos has taken off in the food space, what may be surprising is how it has spawned content creators on social media. The recognizable yellow-orange-red bag can be seen starring in popular TikToks.
“I said to myself, ‘I have to include Hot Cheetos because people are going to relate so much,'” explains Marlene Mendez, a content creator who goes by the name @MarleneDizzle on social networks. Méndez refers to one of the first sketches that he published on Twitter in 2020.
In the video, Méndez holds a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and plays the role of a high school student who FaceTims with her friend, played by Adam Martínez, a content creator known as @AdamRay Okay. The two students are gossiping regarding a bad smell in the classroom before realizing that another student is watching them. Méndez’s character asks the student: “What [improperio] Are you looking?”, visibly upset. At no point does Méndez stop eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. This, according to Méndez, embodies the “Hot Cheetos girl” character that many Latinos went to school with.
“You would always see someone eating Hot Cheetos, like seven in the morning,” Mendez said. “I think it’s also the way she acts and talks and dresses, her hair and everything else. So in my videos I put my hair up because that’s what I used to do in high school, too.”
“She is brave, cheeky, she says funny things, but she is also intelligent and has things clear,” says Filippelli. “The ‘Hot Cheeto girl’ is a bit of a stereotype, right? But I think a lot of female content creators are trying to make it their own.”
It’s a stereotype that Mendez believes she can lean on because she was the Hot Cheeto girl at her school when she was little.
“I had hot Cheetos for breakfast and people were like, ‘Oh my God, it’s 7 or 8 in the morning.’ And I was like, okay, but I haven’t had breakfast. I’m having breakfast.”
It is a character that has made a deep impression among Mendez’s viewers. So much so, that she made her famous on social media, helping launch the full-time career Mendez now has as a content creator.
“Everyone loved it. I think Hot Cheetos were the first chips that we… I mean, I grew up with Hot Cheetos. That was my first bag of chips, I think. I don’t remember trying any other bag of chips, like Fritos or Lay’s.”
Perhaps it is these larger-than-grass icons of the greengrocer that Flamin’ Hot Cheetos has inspired that have made the brand culturally significant to many Latinos.
“I think it’s very interesting that when you look at how [Flamin’ Hot Cheetos] is being promoted today, how they are doing their marketing, they have really understood their consumer group and where the people are. Therefore, although they use well-known names from big brands, like Bad Bunny, to attract US Hispanics, you get the feeling that they are also encouraging their own consumers to speak for them.”
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