• by Tricia Despres , February 2, 2009

You are hungry, so you go to your local grocery store and walk down the snack aisle. There, you find waiting for you hundreds and hundreds of bags filled with artery-clogging chips of every size and color. And then your eyes meet with the Pringles can. Comedian Mitch Hedberg once joked that Pringles meant to go into the tennis ball business, but then a truckload of potatoes showed up instead ("Pringles was a laid-back company"). For decades, the Pringles can alone has set it apart from its salty competitors. And now, those recognizable cans are receiving new life long after the last chip is eaten.

"People have been using the cans for all sorts of uses for decades," says Pringles spokesperson Jen Becker. "We thought this was a fun way to recognize this. Basically, we wanted to tap into the fun of Pringles."

It's called the Pringles Pop Art Can Creator.
The Web site allows users to decorate their own Pringles wrapper and print it out on letter-sized paper to affix to their own Pringles can. Since launching in October, users have also been voting on can cover categories such as funniest and most creative.

"We have had tremendous feedback," says Becker. "We definitely can see the loyalty that our consumers have to our cans."

Alongside the recycling aspect of this particular promotion - people re-use the cans for all sorts of things ... like storing tennis balls - Pringles has also included a charity component to the concept, with $1 of every customized can cover going to the Children's Miracle Network. Tricia Despres