Volusion Customer Care Representative Kate Polito did know that her company offered the best all-in-one shopping cart solution on the market. What she didn’t know is that it could burst with so much cheddar cheese flavor.

“I noticed that all of my Cheetos that day were broken into smaller pieces. I was a bit disappointed, but not really surprised as it was the last snack bag from the box. But I noticed that there was one perfectly intact one right in the middle. I pulled it out and instantly knew I was working in a great place,” said Polito.

Polito decided to preserve the Cheeto on a Post-It note on her desk. “I would have liked to have eaten it, but that just wouldn’t be right. It’s one thing to get an unbroken Cheeto. It’s another thing when that Cheeto represents your company and the people that work for it. It’s a source of pride.”

Other online companies have attempted to duplicate the snack-as-branding phenomenon with little success. eBay CEO Meg Whitman tried to muster support around the eBay Gardetto Pack, which was ultimately thwarted by the online community due to high listing fees. Yahoo’s Jerry Yang gained some traction with the Yahoo Funion complete with ad space for potential bidders, but the Funion’s shape and limited size ultimately left it too vulnerable to Sergey Brin’s widely popular Google Pringle pack. Steve Jobs offered Polito $50,000 to rebrand the Cheeto before it was released to the public, but Polito decided she had other plans.

“In the end, when you find a Cheeto that looks exactly like your logo, you just have to hold on to it. There are just some things money can’t buy.”

–Michelle Greer, Marketing Specialist
http://www.volusion.com

Technorati Tags: Cheeto, Ecommerce, Kate Polito, online shopping cart, sell online, volusion

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