Abstract:

In the first of an (hopefully) ongoing series, the author examines yet another topic about which he knows very little but has spent an inordinate amount of time over analyzing: the design Pringles™ Potato Crisps. True to form, he uses examples from other areas and disciplines (some of which he may know more than a little and others about which he knows next to nothing) to shore up his thesis.

Introduction

Wall of Pringles First off, I’ve got to admit that trying to continue with this pseudo-APA style for this entire post would have been needlessly cumbersome and probably quite annoying. So I’ll borrow the general headers, but the prose will be somewhat-less-than academic.

Some time ago I was eating some Pringles™ Potato Crisps and I started to geek out on what a company like Proctor and Gamble must go through to put a product like Pringles™ Potato Crisps on the market. I’m familiar with the whole putting-products-on-shelves bit as I do some of that in my day job as a “user-researcher” for a video game publisher. I know what it takes to get a game on the shelves and I started thinking about the user-researchers, marketers, product designers, and comestible engineers over at P&G.

I was imaging that they deal with the same issues we do in games – the constant balancing act between the marketing forecasts, the designer’s vision, the end-user experience, the engineering challenges, etc. etc. etc., that we go through when we’re developing and publishing a product. As I’ve said before, “making games fun ain’t all fun and games”. Maybe the good folks of P&G have a similar saying … “Making tasty treats ain’t all … treaty and tasty-y” … hmm needs some work.

In any case, I picked up a new flavor of Pringles™ (well, new to me, anyways) today: Chipotle. Clearly, someone in the New and Emerging Markets Group of the Demographics Analysis Department at P&G’s Savory Tuberous Product Division noticed that the Latino population in the US increased up 57.9% between the 1990 and 2000 censuses and is expected to grow another 71% between 2000 and 2020. Excited by these numbers, they called a meeting with other bigger marketers and executives and some savvy up-and-comer greenlit Project Chupacabra to “Investigate the feasibility and desirability of Latino-themed snack lines”.

Thusly greenlit, a crack team of product designers and (hopefully) user researchers were brought on board to work with the marketers to create a new product that would “introduce the growing Latino population in the US and abroad to the exciting and rewarding active Pringles™ Lifestyle™”. Because, as we all know, Potato Crisps products are not just a snack, they’re a lifestyle choice.

At the kick-off meeting, the Chupacabrans realize that their work is cut out for them: designing a snack line that celebrates the joie-de-vivre, work ethic, and family values of Latino culture while still being sensitive to regional and national differences is going to be a challenge. The project timeline is another complication as everyone knows that summer is THE snacking season. Kids are out of school and parents are struggling, juggling work and keeping the kids busy, trying to keep Dylan out of juvi and Madison out of Planned Parenthood. So sales of both savory and sweet items in the Portable Foods category spike during the summer months.

Rolling up their sleeves, the Chupacagbrans begin planning their first steps – ethnography, consumer focus panels, competitive testing, and other types of user research to help inform the design process.

Coming soon: Project Chupacabra Part 2 – Know thy user.