Pringles Trademarks

Pringles are a brand of stackable potato-based crisps. This American snack product was originally sold by Procter & Gamble (P&G) before the brand was sold to Kellogg’s in 2012.

Pringles are sold in over 140 countries worldwide and in 2012 it was the fourth most popular snack brand, following Lay’s, Doritos, and Cheetos, with a 2.2% global market share. Let’s look into this brand’s massive history, success, markets, and trademarks.

Pringles Company History

Potato chips at the time were too greasy and often broken into bits when stacked on shelves, something consumers often complained about. Procter & Gamble sought to solve consumer complaints about potato chips. At the time, consumers complained that potato chips were too greasy, often broken into pieces, and often stale, due to the air in the bags.

In 1956, P&G, enlisted the help of Fredrick J. Baur, a chemist and mathematician, to create the perfect potato chip. Baur used a geometric formula to create a saddle-shaped chip that won’t break even when stacked in a cylindrical vacuum-sealed can.

Despite solving the market’s biggest problem, the chips tasted awful. P&G shelved the idea until the mid-1960s, when Alexander Liepa, another researcher for P&G, succeeded in improving the new chip’s taste. The new recipe was comprised of a paste of dehydrated potatoes, corn, rice, and wheat.

This new creation was dubbed Pringles Newfangled Potato Chips. The name stuck, but competing manufacturers objected, leading the Food and Drug Administration to rule that P&G could not use the word “chip” to describe its product as it was made from a dough vs a sliced potato.

Pringles would adopt the name crisps for its product instead.

On May 13, 2012, Kellogg acquired Pringles for $2.695 billion, making Kellogg the second-largest snack company in the world.

Pringles Markets and Marketing

Throughout its history, Pringles has used its ad campaigns to compare itself to conventional potato chips. When the brand was called Pringles Newfangled Potato Chips, the company advertised the product under the slogan “Other potato chips just don’t stack up.”

The brand used pop-top cans, claiming the can kept their potato chips fresh and unbroken while holding as many chips as a typical large bag, with a shape that made it easy to stack up the chips. Pringles advertises in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia under the slogan “Once you pop, the fun don’t stop.” The company also uses the original slogan, “Once you pop, you can’t stop!”

In the late 1980s, the company replaced pop-top cans with foil tops.

The 1980 “Pringle Jingle” campaign is credited as the marketing drive that blew up the demand for Pringles. The campaign featured a song with the lyrics, “Once you taste the flavor (“It’s a deep-fried taste!”), then you get the fever (“With a crispy crunch!”), then you’ve got the fever for the flavor of a Pringle!”

Pringles has continued comparing its potato crisp product to bagged chips, deeming the latter as broken and greasy in its marketing.

The Pringles logo features a stylized cartoon caricature of the head of a male figure. It is the original design of Louis R. Dixon and features a large mustache and parted bangs. Until 2001, the character had eyebrows, and a bowtie framed the product name.

The bangs and the lips were removed in 1998, and the head widened a little. The most recent revision to the logo occurred in 2020, with the character getting a minimalistic makeover.

Pringles is an easily identifiable product by its packaging, which features a tubular paperboard can with a foil-lined interior and a resealable plastic lid.

Pringles Trademarks

Pringles has obtained or sought federal registration for about eleven trademarks. Some of the most notable ones include “PRINGLES,” “SNACK STACKS,” “POP PLAY EAT,” and “SMART CRISPS.”

Pringles obtained federal trademark registration for “SNACK STACKS” on November 5, 2002. The brand uses the trademark for snack foods such as potato chips and crisps.

Pringles also obtained federal trademark registration for “POP PLAY EAT” on August 29, 2017. The company also uses this trademark for potato crisps and chips.