If you asked people to “name a potato chip”, they were less likely to name Pringles. The brand struggled to be top of mind among a crowded salty snack category. Our challenge from clients was to change that.

Our audience was 18 - 35 year olds. While they may not keep crisps top of mind, there’s one thing they do keep top of mind: the Pringles logo, Mr. P. The iconic logo is the most recognizable face (and ‘stache) in snacking. Pringles fans love to speculate and form conspiracy theories about who Mr. P is and the origins of his backstory – with 32k+ Mr. P ‘theories’ flooding social media over the past two years.

Our idea: seize on the opportunity of a Mr. P movie, and let the world fill in the blanks for us. We hired the guy who’s been playing every branded character ever (Chris Pratt) to play the Pringles character, Mr. P. Then we teased the world’s “newest” movie, on new movie’s biggest stage: The Super Bowl. And let America fill in the rest.

Hollywood has become obsessed with making movies about brands and the Super Bowl has become the biggest stage to announce them. But instead of dropping hundreds of millions to create a movie, we used this moment in culture to give Pringles the same type of attention that movies get, without ever making one.

We took the same approach with PR: using entertainment media and publications to expand on the Mr. P movie lore.

We started by hiring the talent who’s been playing every branded character: Chris Pratt. The man was everywhere, and by choosing him to “play” Mr. P., we knew the internet would assume a movie was very likely.

Next, we released a cryptic teaser that let the world know that Chris Pratt and Pringles were up to something. After we dropped the teaser, we used entertainment media and publications to expand on the Mr. P movie lore, with features in Variety and Entertainment News. These PR stories added legitimacy to the fact that Chris Pratt could really be starring as Mr. P.

After that, we let the fans run with it. And they did: sharing conspiracy theories, creating fan-made trailers, IMDB pages, casting reviews and even a potential script on eBay – it was like the Mr. P movie was happening before our eyes. Except, of course, it wasn’t.

A movie no one has seen became impossible for America to unsee – earning Pringles the same type of attention that movies get… without ever making one.

6+ billion earned impressions – the most of any Pringles Super Bowl spot the past seven years (Nielsen)

5x more PR articles than Pringles 2023 Super Bowl coverage

60% more PR headlines than Pringles; number one competitor, Dorito’s (Trendkite, Talkwalker)

3x More “Pringles & Chris Pratt” headlines than “Verizon & Beyonce” (Cision Trendkite)

‘Chris Pratt mustache’ trending on Google the evening of the Super Bowl (Google)

‘Pringles’ searches on Google doubled the day after the big game (Google)

+4% YoY e-commerce growth (Circana, Jan-Feb 25 2023 vs .Jan-Feb 25 2024)

And the attention of our 18 - 35 year old target:

500% more social conversation than Pringles 2023 Super Bowl (Talkwalker, 12/5/23 -

2/20/24)

91% of organic social conversation driven by our target audience (Talkwalker)