Pringles: Rick and Morty
Pringles tasked Grey New York with promoting their 'flavor stacking' concept during Super Bowl LIV. The goal was to capture the attention of a skeptical, younger audience who typically tune out during commercial breaks. The client needed a way to make a functional product benefit feel essential and entertaining, leveraging high-impact cultural partnerships to drive both brand awareness and retail sales.
Creative Idea
The brand trapped cartoon characters inside a dystopian commercial to demonstrate infinite flavor combinations.
Pringles leveraged the meta-humor and multiverse chaos of Rick and Morty to promote flavor stacking, transforming a standard Super Bowl ad into a self-aware, canonical episode that turned the audience's cynicism toward advertising into a narrative strength.
Turning Corporate Cynicism Into A Multiverse Masterpiece
A 52 Percent Sales Spike
The campaign proved that meta-humor drives tangible retail results. Beyond the massive 103 million viewers reached during the Super Bowl LIV broadcast, the initiative generated a 52 percent product sales lift for Pringles. The limited-edition Pickle Rick cans were a massive retail success, selling out at major retailers nationwide almost immediately after their early February launch.
Engineering The Mortybot
To ensure the commercial felt like a genuine episode, show creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland oversaw the creative direction. The narrative centered on the concept of Flavor Stacking, which the agency identified as a perfect thematic match for the show's infinite multiverse. The production team achieved a technical milestone by creating the first-ever animated Pringles flavor stack, which featured a specific combination of Pizza, Barbeque, and Jalapeño chips.
Beyond The Broadcast
The integration extended far beyond the 30-second spot. Fans engaged with the brand through an Instagram Augmented Reality filter that allowed users to transform into the brainwashed Mortybot seen in the ad. Furthermore, the partnership permeated the digital gaming space, with Pringles-themed assets and the Mortybot character officially integrated into the Pocket Mortys mobile game. This multi-platform approach ensured that the brand remained part of the conversation long after the game ended, effectively bridging the gap between traditional television advertising and interactive digital fandom. By leaning into the characters' inherent distrust of corporate messaging, the campaign successfully turned a standard commercial break into a piece of entertainment that fans actively sought out and shared.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
Pringles possessed a unique 'flavor stacking' product feature that mirrored the infinite, chaotic possibilities of a multiverse-themed animated series.
Category
Snack brands typically rely on generic, upbeat celebrity endorsements that viewers actively ignore or skip during major broadcast events.
Customer
Viewers were cynical about Super Bowl advertising and craved authentic, self-aware entertainment that respected their intelligence and pop-culture interests.
Culture
The rise of meta-humor and the massive, dedicated cult following of adult-oriented animation created the perfect environment for brand-integrated storytelling.
Company
Pringles possessed a unique 'flavor stacking' product feature that mirrored the infinite, chaotic possibilities of a multiverse-themed animated series.
Category
Snack brands typically rely on generic, upbeat celebrity endorsements that viewers actively ignore or skip during major broadcast events.
Strategy:
Integrate brand utility into existing pop-culture narratives to bypass consumer cynicism toward traditional advertising.
Customer
Viewers were cynical about Super Bowl advertising and craved authentic, self-aware entertainment that respected their intelligence and pop-culture interests.
Culture
The rise of meta-humor and the massive, dedicated cult following of adult-oriented animation created the perfect environment for brand-integrated storytelling.
Strategy:
Integrate brand utility into existing pop-culture narratives to bypass consumer cynicism toward traditional advertising.
Strategy Technique
Borrow Equity
By partnering with a cult-favorite animated series, Pringles bypassed traditional ad-avoidance behaviors. They tapped into an existing, highly engaged fanbase to make their product message feel like a genuine, unmissable piece of content.
Explore Technique
Creative Technique
Create Fantasy Worlds, People and Things
The campaign built a fictional, dystopian reality where the brand's product was the source of the characters' entrapment. This immersive storytelling transformed a simple commercial into a piece of entertainment that fans actively wanted to watch.
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Craft Breakdown
This campaign excels by seamlessly integrating the Pringles product message into the meta-humor and established lore of the Rick and Morty universe. The writing perfectly captures the characters' voices, making the commercial feel like an authentic scene from the show.
The script brilliantly subverts standard commercial tropes by having the characters actively realize and panic about being trapped inside an advertisement.
The animation perfectly replicates the visual style, character models, and expressive movements of the original television series.
