100 King Can Party

Pringles in Australia was facing a tough situation. The brand’s higher price point and intense competition were squeezing it out of retailer shelf space. The brand was failing to connect with either its primary consumers – the youth market, or its primary purchasers – the household grocery buyers. With the launch of its larger format “King” can, Pringles needed to smash the perception of Pringles as a boring, expensive snack.

Deciding that a strategy had to appeal to either the buyer or the consumer, Pringles chose to focus their attentions on the younger consumer audience. The snack brand chose the themes of music and friendship as universal themes that were important to young people of all social groups.

Handling the youth market is notoriously tricky. This media savvy audience will famously reject any message bombardment as white noise, so a brand to needs to position itself in such a way so that it is invited into their world.

Pringles chose to work with another brand that was already a popular name with its consumer target. Modular was a cool, hip Australian music label, with strong credentials among the youth market. Leveraging exclusive access to Modular artists, Pringles joined forces with Facebook, to create a social media focused campaign.

Targeted Facebook ads were sent to 3.2m users, driving them to become Fans of Pringles. The Pringles Australia Fan page became the central hub for the new online community. The Pringles party application enabled fans to create their dream party – choosing a venue, a modular band, and 100 of their friends as guest. The app created a Flash clip of their ultimate party, users could post the film to their page. Other users could comment and vote on the party – or create what they thought would be a better party. Users who designed an “ultimate party” entered a draw to win the night recreated live – down to the last detail of their design.
 
Pringles actively engaged in consumer conversations on the fan pages, and gave away free music downloads as spot prizes. This proactive approach led the Pringles Australia fan-page to become the number one Facebook Fan-Page in Australia, with an more than 266,000 fans. Pringles fans embraced the campaign and it went viral across the Facebook universe, delivering the Pringles message to 7.1 million Facebook users, the total Facebook Australia population at that time.

The King can experienced a massive 200% leap in sales within two weeks at key retailers. More importantly the campaign leaves behind an important legacy – consumer forum in which Pringles can engage in two-way dialogue for future launches and promotions.