Most Halloween ads borrow their scares from horror movies. Pringles found one in its own archive. The man who designed the famous can, Procter & Gamble chemist Fredric Baur, died in 2008 and had part of his ashes buried in one, and the brand has turned that bit of lore into a sweepstakes. The Pringles Once You Drop commercial, a 92-second film released on October 13, 2026, hands the pitch to a real funeral director and asks fans to sign a “will and taste-ament” promising their remains to a Pringles can. Great true story, great casting. The film built around them is far less adventurous than the idea.
WHAT HAPPENS ON SCREEN
We open in a TV-standard funeral home: red velvet curtains, patterned wallpaper, an open white-satin casket with red roses. A man in a dark suit fusses over the casket. “Everything is in place. It’s not crooked. Looking good.” Cut to his desk, with a green banker’s lamp, a beige computer and a nameplate reading “Dan the Funeral Man.” A super introduces Dan Madden, real-life funeral director, and his business card sits in a tiny wooden casket.
Speaking straight to camera, Madden says he has seen “some, shall we say, eccentric final wishes” and loves it when people “think outside the box or the urn.” Then the fact: “Did you know that the inventor of the Pringles can was buried in his own iconic invention?” A can of Original appears with Mr. P’s eyes crossed out as X’s, and the camera finds another can resting on the satin pillow of the casket. Pringles, he explains, is challenging its most die-hard fans to commit to the same fate.
The rest is the mechanic, delivered in order. A printer spits out the “Last Will and Taste-Ament,” which Madden holds up to the lens. The URL gets typed into the old computer. In front of a shelf labeled “Urns” he introduces the prize, and the camera finds a silver urn shaped like the can, embossed with Mr. P. Outside, the back of a black hearse is stacked floor to roof with red cans, the “afterlifetime” supply, and Madden helps himself to a crisp beside it. Back at the desk: “I’m serious. Dead serious.” He signs off beside the casket with “once you drop, the pop don’t stop,” and the end card reworks the brand line as “Once You Drop, The Pop Don’t Stop” with OnceYouDrop.com underneath.
CREDITS
Brand: Pringles, Mars Snacking North America (Mauricio Jenkins, salty snacks brand and content lead). Campaign: “Once You Drop,” co-created by BBDO New York and Weber Shandwick. BBDO New York created the launch film (executive creative director Dan Kelly); Weber Shandwick worked on the wider campaign (executive creative director Allyson Hoar). Talent: Dan Madden, a licensed funeral director known on TikTok as @DanTheFuneralMan. Film: “Pringles | Once You Drop,” 1:32, uploaded to the official Pringles U.S. YouTube channel on October 13, 2026. Sources: Adweek and Campaign US (both October 13, 2026), the Mars press release on PR Newswire (October 13, 2026) and the official upload. Not credited in those sources: director, production company, cinematographer, editor, music, post-production and the urn’s designer or maker.
THE EXECUTION
Casting Madden is the best decision anyone made here. He is not an actor doing “creepy undertaker”; he is a working funeral director with a social following built on exactly this kind of deadpan, and you can hear it in the delivery. “I’m serious. Dead serious” works because he barely leans on it.
The production design is broad but well judged, a funeral parlor cliche dressed with just enough Pringles red. The X-eyed Mr. P is a nice small gag, and the hearse full of cans is the one image that actually looks like an ad people will screenshot. The urn reveal, shot like a jewelry commercial with a presenting hand sliding into frame, is the most polished shot in the film.
WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T
What works: the hook is true, which beats almost any invented Halloween premise. Rewriting the long-running “once you pop” line as “once you drop” is the kind of wordplay that sounds obvious only after someone else has done it. And the tone stays on the right side of morbid; Madden keeps it warm.
What doesn’t: at a minute and a half, this is a sweepstakes explainer with a funny host, not a film. The structure is pure checklist: fact, mechanic, URL, prize, URL again, tagline, URL a third time. The best material, the inventor himself, is never named on screen and gets one sentence; a ten-second dramatization of that 2008 burial would have given the spot a story instead of a briefing. There is no escalation either: after the hearse, the film just circles back to the desk. A tighter 30 or 45 seconds would land harder in the social feeds it was made for.
VERDICT
“Once You Drop” has a terrific true story, a smart tagline twist and a perfectly cast host. But BBDO New York and Weber Shandwick treat the premise as a delivery system for a URL, and the film runs long on instructions and short on surprise. Darkly funny for a minute, then a contest rules page with a pulse. Rating: 3 out of 5.