Hovering at a 3.4% market share, Pringles is far behind leaders like Lay’s (12.6% share) in the salty snack category. With its significantly smaller budgets, Pringles must cut through in unexpected, cost-efficient ways to drive awareness. In the category, brands consistently launch new and limited-edition flavors to gain market share. And Pringles is no exception. But limited-edition flavors are now so common in the category that they’ve become a trope and breaking through with these can be tough. So, our objective was to create a completely new kind of limited-edition flavor that would generate a completely new kind of buzz. In this instance, a limited-edition flavor that has no flavor. That doesn’t even technically exist.

Pringles prides itself on launching limited-edition flavors that react to what the world wants. (Recent examples include Moa Burger Pringles for the upcoming launch of new Halo, Pickle Rick Pringles for the launch of Rick & Morty Season 4, Turducken Pringles for Thanksgiving). In March of 2021, the whole world seemed to want NFTs. So, we gave the people what they wanted, and launched CryptoCrisp. A limited-edition, virtual-only Pringles flavor exclusively available as an NFT. A Pringles flavor that has no flavor, that no-one will ever taste, that doesn’t technically exist. Designed by digital artist Vasya Kolotusha, only 50 CryptoCrisps were made available. And they were sold and traded on the Ethereum-based asset auction site, Rarible.

Pringles were the first chip engineered into the perfect hyperbolic paraboloid shape, allowing them to be uniformly stacked. Pringles also invented the can that keeps chips fresher. In fact, Pringles’ DNA has always been rooted in invention. So, when conceiving of limited-edition flavors, our strategy is to find more inventive approaches than our competitors. Part of that strategy is to create new flavors that tap into cultural trends relevant to our inventiveness. So, in March 2021, when NFTs gained mass recognition, it was an opportunity to put an inventive twist on the standard limited-edition flavors of the category. That’s when Pringles introduced: CryptoCrisp. And since Pringles is always trying to capture a younger audience, it made sense to tap into this cultural trend of NFTs, which had captivated the Millennial target.

In early March 2021, we teased the launch of a new Pringles flavor on social. As with any new flavor news, our followers began speculating what that flavor might be. A couple of days later, we posted a follow-up announcing and showcasing a visual of the flavor: CryptoCrisp. The post linked our several million followers to the Ethereum asset auction site, Rarible. Here, they found the full CryptoCrisp animation and only 50 CryptoCrisps available for purchase. We had enrolled digital artist and regular Rarible contributor, Vasya Kolotusha, to design the CryptoCrisp. This gave us additional credibility in the NFT auction space. CryptoCrisp was originally listed on Rarible for the price of a Pringles can: $2. Within the hour, all 50 sold. Then, a bidding war began on the site, with owners reselling for over $4500. In the end, we announced all profits would go to food charity, No Kid Hungry.

All 50 CryptoCrisps sold out within an hour. Originally listed for $2, owners resold theirs for over $4500. CryptoCrisp was picked up by major news, business, trend and food titles including: Food & Wine Magazine, HypeBeast, Design Taxi, Trend Hunter, Los Angeles Times, Fox News, San Francisco Chronical, Inc. Magazine etc. This generated 96 million earned impressions within the first 24-hours and brought Pringles into cutting-edge cultural conversations it had never been part of before. The CryptoCrisp launch post has the most engagement of any social post on Pringles’ feed this year – with over 20 times more engagement than average. And while it is too early to correlate these stats with an increase in sales of real-life Pringles, the above data shows that we easily met our objective of creating a unique, special edition pack that broke through and drove brand awareness within a sea of competitor special edition.