Power of Online 28 | SunMatrix Ramble

Cheetahpult

In March I had written about how Google had inspired developers to convert mobile phones and tablets into remote controls for desktop browsers via a simple mobile URL.

Now Cheetos, an American brand of cheese-flavored puffed cornmeal snacks has successfully tapped this technology to engage with their viewers as they watch their regular TV commercial on YouTube.

Viewers watching the new Cheetos Mix-Ups ad on YouTube received a dual screen experience in which they could fling the new Cheetos Mix-Ups snacks from their phone into a video playing on their desktop. 😎

The campaign has successfully created a new way for people to engage with the ad and get to know the product’s new shapes and colors. As a result the video has already got 8.5 million views on YouTube and people who played the game stayed for an average of 7 minutes and 17 seconds, and flung an average of 56 Cheetos per game.

For the full experience don’t forget to visit the Cheetos YouTube Channel.

Social Robots: San Pellegrino and Coca-Cola

In 2011, Andes Beer in Argentina used robots in their campaign to enable people to virtually experience a real-life event. Fast forward to 2013 and social robots show up again, this time in campaigns from Italy and Israel.

When “social” becomes physical

The mechanism in both examples is telepresence. A robot with a webcam and microphone acts as a movable avatar in a real location. People at home control where it goes, what it looks at, and who it talks to, turning a distant event into something they can actively explore rather than passively watch.

In experiential marketing, telepresence robots let brands scale a place-bound moment to remote audiences without reducing it to a simple livestream.

Why the robot format lands

This works because it restores a missing ingredient of remote content. Presence. You are not only consuming footage. You are choosing what to look at, moving through the environment, and having real-time interactions that feel personal.

Extractable takeaway: If your brand moment is tied to a physical place, give remote audiences viewer control over a live viewpoint. Even small control makes the experience feel earned, and earned experiences get talked about.

Three minutes in Italy

San Pellegrino invited Facebook fans to discover the Sicilian village of Taormina and explore its cobblestone streets via a webcam and microphone enabled robot controlled from their own computer.

Coca-Cola Summer Love 2013

Coca-Cola Summer Love is the annual summer event for Israeli teenagers. Not everyone can join in person, so Coca-Cola created robots that allowed teens to be part of the camp without leaving their homes. The robots carried webcams and microphones and were controlled by users who could not physically be there.

Users could navigate around the campus, talk with friends, watch shows, participate in competitions, and be part of the experience. The robots were welcomed, danced with, and treated like real attendees, becoming the “stars” and a natural media magnet inside the event.

What to steal if you are planning a live experience

Make control the feature. Remote access becomes meaningful when people can choose what happens next.
Keep interactions human-scale. Let remote users talk to real people, not just watch a feed.
Time-box the experience. Constraints like “three minutes” create urgency and reduce operational load.
Design for friendliness. The robot should invite social acceptance in the space, not disrupt it.

A few fast answers before you act

What is a “social robot” in these campaigns?

A telepresence robot that carries a live camera and microphone, letting a remote person control movement and interact with people on-site in real time.

Why is telepresence more compelling than a normal livestream?

Because it adds viewer control and two-way interaction. Control makes the experience feel personal, and two-way contact makes it feel like participation rather than content consumption.

What is the main operational risk?

Latency, connectivity, and crowd behavior. If the robot is hard to control or gets blocked, the magic disappears quickly.

Where does this pattern fit best?

Events, tourism, launches, and experiences where the value is being “there,” and where remote audiences have strong motivation but limited ability to attend physically.

Skittles: Telekinize the Rainbow

You look at a single Skittle on a white surface, and it starts to move. The moment plays like telekinesis. It is not a visual trick on a screen. It is a live feed of real Skittles being nudged around in the real world.

Skittles Australia and Clemenger BBDO build this as a Facebook experience because, as the case frames it, only a small minority of fans engage with a brand’s page after liking it. The goal is to make “like” feel like a superpower, not a dead end.

The trick is not mind control. It is eye control

The mechanism is webcam tracking plus a physical rig. Your eye movements, captured via webcam, are translated into commands sent to Wi-Fi-controlled robots attached to Skittles, so the candy moves in response to where you look.

In social platforms, turning passive likes into active participation usually comes down to one thing. Give people an interaction loop that feels immediate, personal, and worth showing to someone else.

Why it lands

It creates a clean “I need to try this” reaction in seconds. The live camera feed removes skepticism, and the physical motion makes the experience feel bigger than a typical Facebook app. It also bakes in a share-worthy narrative: the fan is not consuming content. The fan is controlling a real object.

Extractable takeaway: If you want engagement rather than reach, stop asking for attention and start granting control. A tiny moment of viewer control, tied to a brand asset, can outperform bigger content drops because the audience feels like the protagonist.

What to steal for your next social activation

Make the mechanic visible. Live proof beats claims. If the audience can see it is real, they trust it faster.
Turn the brand into the interface. Here the “UI” is literally the product. That keeps the experience on-brand without extra messaging.
Design for one-person amazement and second-person sharing. The first user is impressed. The second user wants to replicate it.
Keep the loop short. Look. Move. React. Repeat. The faster the feedback, the longer people stay.

Campaign write-ups report that users spent an average of around four minutes interacting with the experience, and that page growth and app ranking spiked during the run.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Telekinize the Rainbow?

A Facebook experience that lets people move real Skittles through eye movements captured by a webcam, with the motion executed by Wi-Fi-controlled robotics.

Is it actually mind control?

No. The “telekinesis” framing is the story. The control signal is eye movement, translated by software into physical movement.

Why is the live webcam feed important?

It proves the effect is happening in real space, which makes the experience feel more magical and more credible than a purely on-screen interaction.

What is the main risk in copying this approach?

If setup friction is high or latency is noticeable, the illusion collapses. Experiences built on “power” need instant response to feel real.