Three brands won attention this month by taking a real risk. Here’s what that means for your next campaign.
BYU Marketing Lab. Trend Take. 3 min read.
October usually means pumpkin-spice drops and a ghost emoji in every caption. The ads actually earning attention this month dared to be different. A car brand resurrected a forty-year-old movie character. A chip brand designed a product for after you're dead. A burrito chain built a bag the size of a toddler. None of these ideas were safe. All three are landing.
three brands that picked the trick
Adweek's October 16 "Ads of the Week" roundup flagged all three for choosing a strange, specific idea over a safe, generic one. The most Halloween-appropriate, by a mile, is Pringles.
Once You Drop: Pringles plans your funeral
Pringles flipped its own "Once you pop" tagline into "Once You Drop." From October 13 to 22, fans signed a "will and taste-ament" pledging, half-seriously, to be buried in a Pringles can. One random winner, notified on Halloween, gets an engraved can-shaped urn and an "afterlifetime supply" of chips: $28,080 in cash, or one can a week for 200 years. A real funeral director, TikTok's Dan the Funeral Man, delivers the pitch.
And the joke has a true story underneath it. Fredric Baur, the chemist who invented the can, had part of his ashes buried in one in 2008. That's why this reads as clever instead of just weird.
The other two took smaller swings. Rivian brought back Bill Murray's Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters to sell EVs, and Chipotle gave away a takeout bag big enough to make a group order feel like an event.
why weird keeps winning
The safe version of any ad is always sitting right there, and it's always easier to approve. Most brands take it by default, not because nobody pitched the weird idea, but because nobody wanted to sign off on the branded urn.
The research says safe doesn't always lead to success. Most ads are forgotten almost immediately, and the ones that stick lead with emotion, not product specs.
so, did it work?
The reach of the Pringles campaign speaks for itself: Adweek, Yahoo, local TV from Dallas to Boston, and trade press are already calling it a standout of the season. Pringles even built sharing into the entry, letting fans download a "seal of commitment" to post tagging @Pringles. Generating free content from every single entrant.
a trick-or-treat audit for your next campaign
Before you approve the next "safe" ad, ask:
Halloween passes. The pressure to be remembered doesn't. The brands still getting talked about next month won't be the ones that avoided every risk. They'll be the ones that chose, on purpose, exactly where to get a little strange.
sources
Adweek, "Ads of the Week: 13 Campaigns That Caught Our Eye, From Chipotle to Pringles," Oct. 16, 2026 · Adweek, "Pringles Offers One Die-Hard Fan a Final Resting Place in a Branded Urn," Oct. 13, 2026 · Nielsen, "Understanding Memory in Advertising" · System1 Group, "Emotion's Key Role in Digital Ad Effectiveness" · KY3, "Pringles Is Offering a Can-Shaped Urn," Oct. 15, 2026 · Nerdbot, "Pringles Is Offering Fans the Chance to Win a Can-Shaped Urn," Oct. 19, 2026 · DesignRush, "Pringles Digs Up Its Inventor's 2008 Burial for a Halloween Urn," Oct. 2026 · Bakery & Snacks, "Snack Marketing Psychology and the Power of Seasonal Treats," Oct. 27, 2026 · Pringles Once You Drop Sweepstakes Official Rules
