PRINGLES CHIPS

Background to the student activity

In 1956, Procter & Gamble assigned a task tochemistFredric J. Baur(1918-2008): to develop a new kind of potato chips to address consumer complaints about broken, greasy, and stale chips, as well as air in the bags. Baur spent 2 years developing saddle-shaped chips from fried dough, and selected the tubular can as the chips' container. However, he could not figure out how to make the chips taste good, and was pulled off the task to work on another brand. In the mid-1960s another P&G researcher, Alexander Liepa ofMontgomery, Ohio, restarted Baur's work and succeeded in improving the taste. Although Baur was the true inventor of the Pringles chip, Liepa's name is on the patent. Gene Wolfe, a mechanical engineer and author known forscience fictionandfantasynovels, helped develop the machine that cooks them.

The consistent saddle shape is mathematically known as ahyperbolic parabolic.Their designers reportedly usedsupercomputersto ensure that the chips' aerodynamics would keep them in place during packaging and that they wouldn't break when being stacked on top of each other.

P&G began selling Pringles in limited areas in 1967; by 1975, they were available across most of the USA, and by 1991 were distributed internationally.

There are several theories behind the origin of the product's name. One theory refers to Mark Pringle, who filed a US Patent 2,286,644 titled "Method and Apparatus for Processing Potatoes" on March 5, 1937.Pringle's work was cited by P&G in filing their own patent for improving the taste of dehydrated processed potatoes.Another theory suggests that two Procter advertising employees lived on Pringle Drive inFinney town(north of Cincinnati, Ohio), and the name paired well with "potato chips".Another theory says that P&G chose the Pringles name from aCincinnatitelephone book.

The product was originally known as Pringles Newfangled Potato Chips, but other snack manufacturers objected, saying Pringles failed to meet the definition of apotato "chip"since they were made from a potato-based dough rather than being sliced from potatoes like "real" potato chips. The US Food and Drug Administration weighed in on the matter, and in 1975 they ruled Pringles could only use the word "chip" in their product name within the phrase: "potato chips made from dried potatoes".^[16]Faced with such a lengthy and unpalatable appellation, Pringles eventually renamed their product potato "crisps", instead of chips.

In July 2008, in theLondon High Court, P&G lawyers successfully argued that Pringles were not crisps even though labelled "Potato Crisps" on the container (in Britain what are known as "chips" in the US are known as "crisps") as the potato content was only 42% and their shape, P&G stated, "is not found in nature". This ruling, against a United Kingdomvalue added tax(VAT) and Duties Tribunal decision to the contrary, exempted Pringles from the then 17.5% VAT for potato crisps and potato-derived snacks.In May 2009, theCourt of Appealreversed the earlier decision. A spokesman for P&G stated it had been paying the VAT proactively and owed no back taxes.

In April 2011, P&G agreed to theUS$2.35billion sale of the brand toDiamond Foodsof California, a deal which would have more than tripled the size of Diamond's snack business.However, the deal fell through in February 2012 after a year-long delay due to issues over Diamond's accounts. On May 31, 2012,The Kellogg Companyofficially acquired Pringles for $2.695billion as part of a plan to grow its international snacks business. The acquisition of Pringles makes Kellogg the second-largest snack company in the world.

Pringlesis an American brand of potato and wheat-based stackable snackchips. It is owned byKellogg's.

Originally developed byProcter & Gamble(P&G) in 1967, and marketed as "Pringle's Newfangled Potato Chips", the brand was sold to Kellogg's in 2012.As of 2011 Pringles are sold in more than 140 countries.In 2012, Pringles were the fourth most popular snack brand afterLay's,DoritosandCheetos(all manufactured byFrito-Lay), with 2.2% market share globally

Pringles is a snack brand owned by Kellogg's, and is sold in over 140 countries. Most students would know this brand as it comes in a can and the chips are stacked.

Here are some of their flavors:

In 2020 , Pringles ran a sales promotion built around WTF = what's the flavor? Here is their packaging for this promotion...

As can be seen, the packaging is black-and-white, giving no particular clue to the flavor inside. Mr Pringle on the logo looks puzzled. And the caption at the top of the packaging reads "what's the flavor? Guess to win $10,000.

Therefore, it has been designed as a competition-based sales promotion.

STUDENT QUESTIONS

1.Do you think that this campaign be likely to increase short-term sales?

2.Why would a consumer buy a product where they did not know whether they liked the flavor?

3.Why would the brand associate with the letters WTF, given this can also have a negative implication?

4.Why would the brand run this sales promotion, rather than just introducing the new flavor straight to the marketplace?

5.Other than short-term sales, what other marketing goals could this campaign have for the brand?