Pringles is a snack brand known for its cylindrical packaging. The Pringles can is infamous for being too narrow—for decades, social posts, memes, movies, comedy shows, and beyond have made jokes about people getting their hands stuck in the can. It was Pringles’ #1 complaint. Yet, they never even responded. In this age of constant social media communication, the brand knew they had to respond. It was time to change the narrative around their cans—going from something to complain about, to something to celebrate.

Knowing that we could not change the most iconic feature of our product—the can—we decided to change the narrative about it. We finally responded to those who complained about getting their hands stuck in the cans online—not to apologize about it, but to celebrate it. We gave their social complaints the big acknowledgement they deserved, on the biggest stage in advertising: the Super Bowl. All of these steps of the campaign were methodically taken to earn the attention of those who had complained—essentially dedicating our entire campaign to them.

The insight was that 43% of people have reported to have gotten their hand stuck in a Pringles can. This data was supported by the copious amount of social posts on the subject, across platforms. The main PR message was that Pringles wanted to turn something everyone complained about (getting stuck in the can) into something to celebrate. They targeted those who complained online, and the general public (almost half of which had been statistically gotten stuck at some point). Then those complaint tweets were turned into a Super Bowl ad—becoming one of the most talked about big game ads. Influencers then began creating their own “stuck in” content, further amplifying our message of celebrating getting stuck in.

We built an entire campaign around the thousands of social posts about getting stuck in a Pringles can. We engaged with this community, finally responding to their tweets from up to 10 years ago. We used those very same complaints to release a Super Bowl spot made from tweets—with every scene inspired by a real post. We also shared the film directly with those who inspired it, on Twitter. Influencers across platforms made content about getting their hands stuck in Pringles cans, inspiring many others to, too—so by the end of the launch, Pringles had turned their most-talked-about complaint into their most-talked-about campaign.

The campaign was a huge success, earning 2 Billion earned media impressions within the first 24 hours, and an additional 2.7 Billion views of original content on TikTok from influencers. Our Social engagement on Twitter increased by 300%, and the conversation around the Pringles can increased by 3000%. The campaign’s hashtag, #PringlesCanHands was trending. This positive social chatter about getting stuck in a Pringles can completely eclipsed the negative posts on the subject that inspired the campaign—successfully achieving our goal of changing the narrative around our packaging, and building stronger connections with our customers.