One of the things we love about this Brand Matters section is that every week we get to confirm that products never get old, as long as they find a relevant way to say what they have said all along. An age-old advertising principle, as relevant today as it was when copywriters worked on typewriters.

Pringles is now 58 years old and still surprises with new, unexpected ways to sell its chips. For Halloween, it built a sweepstake that no other brand could credibly pull off. A very morbid offer. The most interesting aspect of this campaign is that the idea was born from a real story: the man who designed the Pringles can asked to be buried in one.

The real story goes like this. Fredric Baur, the man who designed the Pringles can, asked his family to bury part of his ashes inside one of his beloved cans. At first, his children thought it was a joke, but when they saw he was dead serious, they honored the request. When he died in 2008, they stopped at a Walgreens for a can of Pringles on the way to collect his ashes. BBDO New York and Weber Shandwick turned that anecdote into this campaign.

The real find is the anecdote Pringles dug up, and it only works because it’s true.

It was refreshing to see an ad use wordplay as a creative path. The “will and taste-ament,” the “afterlifetime” supply and “Once You Drop” all bend the existing “Once You Pop” slogan.

The “200-year supply” is awarded as cash. The official rules set it at $28,080, which is 52 cans a year for 200 years at $2.70 each. The winner also gets a custom metal urn, fancier than the store-bought can Baur’s family used. Entries closed on October 22, and the winner will be announced around Halloween.

And to close the circle, Pringles brought in Dan the Funeral Man, who plays himself. Dan Madden is a real funeral director in Salem, Ohio, with over 132,000 TikTok followers.

A joke works best when there are no cracks in it. Taking a real piece of brand backstory and delivering it again 18 years later makes this an ad worth talking about.

If there is one word in the Pringles brand deck, it’s probably absurd. After “Duck King” in 2025 and Sabrina Carpenter’s chip-made love interest earlier this year, this Halloween idea is just another step in the brand’s real direction: becoming relevant to Gen Z.

Giving away a metal urn for your ashes is just the tone Gen Z loves. Dark humor, wit and edge are all on the menu. Mauricio Jenkins, Salty Snacks Brand & Content Lead at Mars Snacking North America, says the campaign is about “putting Pringles on the salty side of Halloween,” leaning into Gen Z’s taste for absurdist storytelling.

It’s encouraging to see ads that take an insight from the brand’s own history and adapt it to the modern taste of their audience. Telling a joke is one thing. Turning the story of your designer’s burial into one is another. A big shoutout to BBDO New York, Weber Shandwick and the Pringles marketing team for this piece. This week, you won by far.