2025 Gold Launch
15 Dec 2025
Agency: ZEAL
Client: Cheez-it, Kellanova
Entry Name: Cheez-It UK & Ireland Launch
Executive Summary
Cheez-It, the iconic American snack, made its UK&I debut in August 2024, shaking up the £4bn salty snack market. Objectives: achieve 7.7%+ household penetration and generate £10M+ in Year 1 sales.
Strategy
To break habitual behaviour in a cluttered, HFSS-restricted market, Cheez-It needed to become impossible to ignore. The team front-loaded research across product testing, packaging, positioning, creative development and media pre-testing. This identified three critical insights: the US product wasn’t right for UK tastes; cheese alone wasn’t distinctive - it’s already common in the category; and the audience were creatures of habit.
These insights shaped the strategy: over-index on visibility through bold creative and high-impact media; create cultural relevance with humour, PR and influencer storytelling; drive trial through sampling, incentives and bold brand encounters. This insight-led, full-funnel framework turned a 100-year-old US snack into a UK challenger.
Creativity
The team built a culturally charged campaign around the idea ‘Cheez-Hit? Cheez-It’, dramatising the ‘craveable’ power of real cheese satisfaction and bringing a US icon to life with a challenger mindset.
The brand’s striking red-and-yellow visuals, spiral ‘Cheez-Hit’ eyes and playful tone ran through every channel, delivering standout in a saturated market. A phased omnichannel strategy moved snack lovers through the funnel, for instance teaser OOH at Heathrow’s US terminal built intrigue. The campaign tapped expat influencers, Reddit threads and meme-led social content, including the ‘Cheez-Masons’ - a secret cheese society fronted by Rylan Clark that drove earned media and online buzz.
Results
Successes included £22.2 million in sales since launch in August 2024, up to mid-July 2025. £10m+ sales were achieved in Year 1; 13.1% household penetration reached, placing Cheez-It in the top 20% of all FMCG NPDs launched in the past four years; 33% repeat purchase rate; 51% awareness within six months, with a 15% growth trajectory.
With more than13.8 million packs sold; 83% ACV achieved within 12 weeks across grocery, convenience and wholesale, and 3.7 million UK shoppers recruited to the brand, Cheez-It is set to become a £40m brand in Year 2, fast-tracking Kellanova’s ambition to lead the UK cheese snack market.
Contributors
Leo Burnett, Mercieca, Tinman, Carat UK
The Team
- Rui Frias, UK Senior Marketing Manager, Kellanova - Rebecca Worthington, Salty Snacks Marketing Lead, Kellanova - Charley Atkinson, Account Director, ZEAL – Alexandra Woolley, Account Director, ZEAL - Alex Warrilow, Senior Account Manager, ZEAL - Mary Towson, Senior Account Executive, ZEAL - John Treacy, Executive Creative Director, ZEAL - Mike Marshall, Creative Services Director, ZEAL - Danny Young, Midweight Creative, ZEAL - Dannielle Spencer, Senior Designer, ZEAL