Pringles - If anyone can, we can

Pink Key Licensing Talks About the Exceptional Growth and Versatility of the Pringles Brand

The Pringles brand in licensing terms is rather enigmatic. A lot of the early potential licensees we’ve talked to have given us the same reaction ‘That’s great’ followed by ‘Err, what do we do with it?’. In the recent global fashion trend that was focussed on logos, food and brands with broad awareness, Pringles did a lot of box-ticking and as a result the brand has performed exceptionally well for us over the last 12 months, appearing on a lot of T-shirts and pyjamas. The image is a strong one and the style-guide one of richest and most adaptable we have at our disposal, with colours, fonts and slogans all interchangeable (even within a single design) that gives it a real vibrancy and flexibility you don’t often see. However, where the brand really wins is something that’s so obvious that we probably missed it in the first year or so of licensing it. Of course, the brand name has global awareness, of course everyone knows Mr P (even if they do get him confused with the bloke on the Monopoly board), of course everyone thinks the Olympic velodrome was built in the shape of a Pringle, but nothing separates out Pringles in a more distinctive way than …. the shape of the Pringles can. I can more or less guarantee if I put a plain, blank, unbrand

ed can on the table most people would know what they are looking at. And so began our search for the licensees with a bit of imagination, who weren’t going to just label slap the logo, but who were going to dig a little into the brand DNA and use that, along with the unique can shape to bring products to market that really represented the brand and its character. Pringles is a social brand, eaten at occasions related to sport, entertainment and general gatherings. It’s pretty cool too, which is why it has lent itself so well to the apparel we’ve seen in H&M, Primark and others. But the real wins in terms of product have been where the product has gone a little bit further than just putting the logo on a T-shirt. It began with the Helix pencil case and the

Gibson jigsaw; the success of these products reinforced our thoughts on the novelty value behind the brand, with both products making great use of the distinctive Pringles can shape. Since then we have talked to all our licensees about utilising this unique feature of the product. If you want true success from managing a lifestyle brand, you have to go a little bit further than just applying the style guide to standard product or shape, you have

to get inventive. The jigsaw is a great example of this; you could have done a puzzle of a stack of Pringles, equally you could have done ANY puzzle in a can as it’s a good container, but Gibson’s went the extra mile in sourcing a can the exact size and shape of a Pringles can as well as producing a double-sided puzzle with a can on one side and stack of Pringles on the other. The re-focus on all things canshaped has resulted in some excellent thinking both in terms of product development and packaging. On the product side one of our favourites remains the can shaped pencil case, sharpeners and erasers from Helix (in three varieties no less!). On top of this Roy Lowe developed an enormously successful ‘Pop Box’ which was sold last Christmas in Primark; there was no can shape here, but once you’ve removed your lovely Pringles

socks from the pack, you then have a super container to stash your Pringles in and carry them around – genius! Recently our licensees have started development on even more inventive products: PJ’s, pants and socks, all in a can; a full-sized Pringles Can costume to wear, and … wait for it …a Pringles can-shaped laundry basket (who wouldn’t want one of those?). One of our favourites is going to be Pringles can-shaped lip balms (to be clear, we’ve avoided the flavours as we didn’t think Sour Cream and Chives worked brilliantly). And so our quest continues with more collectible jigsaws, money boxes and safes on the way – anything you can turn into a Pringles can, any kind of life hack we can think of, and all we need are the right partners to do it – ‘CAN DO’ licensees if you like …. apologies, couldn’t resist!