There’s brand synergy, and then there’s whatever the hell Nickelback and Megan Thee Stallion just did with this new Cheetos Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle commercial.
The unlikely crossover feels less like an ad and more like a full blown fever dream stitched together from meme culture, nostalgia, and a reckless amount of cheese dust, it’s a fun one.
The setup is simple enough before it spirals, Megan Thee Stallion is mid music video shoot, casually smashing Cheetos between takes, when she finds out the dill pickle flavour has been axed. Not impressed, she decides it needs to come back, telling her assistant to “bring the pickle back.” What she gets instead is Nickelback.
Yeah. Nickelback.
When ‘Pickle’s Back’ becomes a thing
The miscommunication kicks off a surreal sequence where Nickelback roll in and somehow end up backing Megan on a track called ‘Pickle’s Back’, it’s basically a warped take on ‘How You Remind Me’, reworked into a snack fuelled anthem that shouldn’t exist but somehow does (per Metal Sucks).
It’s silly, self aware, and oddly committed, Nickelback lean into the joke rather than fighting it, which is probably why it lands, there’s no attempt to play it cool here. They’re in on it, and that makes all the difference.
Full blown snack heist energy
Things escalate quickly, the clip smash cuts into a full on heist, with Megan and Nickelback storming a Cheetos warehouse to reclaim the discontinued flavour, what follows is a city wide chase packed with explosions, orange dust clouds, and the kind of over the top action you’d expect from a late night Adult Swim slot rather than a snack commercial.
By the end, it’s mission accomplished, the crowd gets their fix, and the suits at Frito Lay cave, bringing the flavour back.
It’s not exactly heavy, and it’s definitely not subtle, but there’s something weirdly refreshing about seeing a band like Nickelback embrace absurdity instead of dodging it, in a scene that often takes itself too seriously, this kind of left field randomness hits different.
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