Inside Sabrina Carpenter’s Short, Sweet Super Bowl Relationship With Pringles

Sabrina Carpenter had a recent courtship that lasted weeks — but her fans will only get to see 30 seconds’ worth.

To woo the effervescent pop star to take part in its latest Super Bowl commercial, Mars’ Pringles offered her a director who had worked with her previously on one of her music videos, and gave Carpenter a chance to pick from a selection of creative “teaser” concepts that would tee up its overall ad.

Pringles has a little more crunch than some other Super Bowl sponsors. It has joined the Big Game ad roster for for eight consecutive years and its appearance during NBC’s February 8 telecast of the NFL spectacle between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots will mark its ninth. That has lent executives at Pringles, which recently became part of consumer-products giant Mars Inc. after it acquired the Kellogg Co. spinoff Kellanova in December, much hard-won knowledge of the Super Bowl ad game.

“One of the things that we always want to do with our talent is make sure that they authentically love the spot,” says Diane Sayler, a senior director at Mars Snacking who oversees marketing for the company’s salty snack, during a recent interview. “A key piece of working with talent is making sure they like it as you’ve sort of written it,” and allowing the celebrity to “make it her own, and put it in her own voice.”

The result: A humorous look at dating that has Carpenter on a whirlwind romance with a boyfriend who is made entirely out of Pringles. Carpenter complains to a friend that she’s tired of dating boys and, wants someone more mature. She is inspired by Mr. P., Pringles’ signature character, to build a new companion by stacking the famous potato chips. Hilarity and love ensue — until her new significant other is knocked over by Carpenters’ fans. In a wry comment on the hazards of fame, Carpenter and fans are seen in the last seconds of the ad eating the remains of the potato-chip paramour.

The concept was based on a magazine article executives saw about GenZ dating, says Sayler. “The headline was ‘Having a boyfriend is embarrassing,'” she recalls. “What’s kind of behind that whole idea is that dating and relationships and being online from the day you were born for GenZ — it’s just so different than all generations before.” And with Pringles reviving a classic slogan last year — “Once You Pop, The Pop Don’t Stop” — executives felt Carpenter, a pop star, would help bring that concept home to consumers.

Of course, first the company had to make sure Carpenter was interested in the assignment. “We started talking about Sabrina for this concept from day one,” Sayler says. During the summer, her team was “heavy in our creative process, determining which of our ideas is the lead horse. Conversations with her team started at the same time. I don’t want to go too far, you know, down the line on something that’s not of interest to the talent.”

Working with a romantic partner made out of snack food can present challenges. A scene of Carpenter and her Pringles pal on a “kiss cam” — a reference to a viral incident that took place in July in which a woman and her boss were spotted on a big screen during a Coldplay concert in Boston — was easily accomplished in two takes, says Sayer. Another one of Carpenter and her companion, known as “Pringleleo,” at a romantic restaurant, took much longer. “He is feeding her tiramisu. Sabrina had a lot of tiramisu in one day,” Sayler confides. “She was very patient as we got that moment exactly right — getting Pringleleo to hold the spoon. That’s one where, you know, in your mind, you’re like, oh, you’re just gonna put the spoon in his hand and it’s just gonna work. And, on set, working with the team behind Pringleleo, certain things took longer, but she was she was amazing. She was the most collaborative partner. She’s a true professional.”

The commercial is crafted with great care, the executive says, so that people who see it will remember the product and not just Carpenter. “In my opinion, one of the worst possible things that can happen to a Super Bowl marketer is the audience remembers your celebrity or your song or your ad concept, but not your brand,” she says, something that can be “a huge risk” when NBC has been seeking from $7 million to more than $10 million for 30 seconds of ad time. Pringles’ Super Bowl ads all feature the product in interesting ways made to create memories, like having a hand stuck in a Pringles can, or stacking chips to create intriguing flavors. Creating a link between the ad and the product has “been a strategy for us” for years.

The company will have to wait until Sunday to find out if viewers have faith in the new relationship between Pringles and Carpenter.