Pringles is running a Halloween campaign that offers one US fan a custom can-shaped cremation urn and a 200-year supply of crisps, provided they sign a pledge agreeing to have their ashes buried in it. The campaign is called “Once You Drop” and is built around a real piece of Pringles history that most people have never heard of.
The Backstory
Fredric Baur was the organic chemist and Procter & Gamble food scientist who invented the Pringles can in the 1960s and received a patent for the tubular, vacuum-sealed container in 1970. When Baur died in 2008 at the age of 89, some of his ashes were placed inside a can of original Pringles at his request. That detail sat largely unnoticed in his obituary for nearly two decades. Pringles has now built a campaign around it.
The Execution
To enter, US fans visit onceyoudrop.com and sign a document the campaign calls a “Last Will and Taste-Ament,” pledging that their ashes will be buried in a Pringles can. The entry window closes on October 22. One winner is selected at random and notified around Halloween on October 31.
The prize is a custom-made, engraved Pringles can-shaped urn and $28,080, which the campaign frames as the cost of one can of Pringles per week for 200 years. The campaign describes this as an “afterlifetime” supply.
The campaign’s launch film features Dan Madden, a real funeral director from Salem, Ohio, who is also a TikTok creator known as Dan the Funeral Man. The film opens with him checking a casket. His presence grounds the campaign in something credible rather than making it a purely digital stunt.
The Campaign Voice
Mauricio Jenkins, Salty Snacks Brand and Content Lead at Mars Snacking North America, described the campaign as leaning into Halloween’s dark humour and Gen Z’s taste for absurdist storytelling. The campaign is not pretending the proposition is serious. The legal document framing, the cash equivalent of a 200-year snack supply, and the funeral director spokesperson are all signals that the brand is playing a very specific tone deliberately.
The campaign is distributed across social channels and online video. BBDO New York and Weber Shandwick co-created it.
The Broader Pattern
Pringles has a history of using its can as a cultural object rather than just a container. The distinctive cylindrical shape, the pop sound on opening, and the difficulty of reaching the last few crisps at the bottom have all featured in brand communications over the years. “Once You Drop” takes that logic further than any previous execution by making the can a final destination rather than a snack vessel.
The Fredric Baur story is the campaign’s most durable asset. It is verifiable, it is surprising, and it was always there. The campaign did not invent the connection between Pringles and burial. It simply found it.
Campaign Name: “Once You Drop”
Agency Name: BBDO New York / Weber Shandwick
Brand Name: Pringles (Mars Snacking North America)
Location: United States
