The Taylor Effect, the Grammy Pipeline, and Cultural Timing: How Pringles Turned a Campaign Into a Cultural Moment

February 1: Sabrina Carpenter performs “Manchild” at the 68th Grammy Awards in front of millions of viewers.

January 14 - February 3: Teasers for her Pringles campaign generate 562,800+ TikTok likes and 26,000+ new Instagram followers for the brand.

February 8: The “Pringleleo” ad airs during Super Bowl LX to 127+ million viewers.

That timeline isn’t coincidence. It’s the most precise execution of cultural timing we’ve seen in Super Bowl advertising.

The Taylor Effect: why a pop star is the perfect Super Bowl choice

To understand why Pringles chose Sabrina Carpenter, you need to understand what happened to the Super Bowl audience.

Taylor Swift changed who watches the Super Bowl

Taylor Swift’s relationship with Travis Kelce didn’t just generate headlines. It transformed NFL demographics. Female viewership of American football grew significantly since 2023, with Kansas City Chiefs games registering notable increases when cameras showed Swift in the stands.

Mars Snacking didn’t ignore this data. Diane Sayler articulated it directly: the notion that “sports are for guys” is obsolete. The Super Bowl is now a cultural event attracting gender-diverse viewership. And that diversified audience wants content that reflects their interests, not just football and beer.

Carpenter as an extension of the Swift ecosystem

Sabrina Carpenter isn’t Taylor Swift. But she belongs to the same cultural ecosystem:

• Opened for Swift’s Eras Tour from August 2023 through March 2024, exposing her music to pop’s largest current fanbase
• Her career exploded during that exact period: “Espresso” hit #3 on the Hot 100, “Please Please Please” reached #1
• She shares audience demographics: young women, Gen Z and late millennials, pop culture consumers
• Her presence in the Super Bowl speaks directly to the audience the “Taylor Effect” brought to the NFL

When Mars cited “the Taylor Effect” as strategic context, they weren’t using a buzzword. They were identifying a real demographic shift and choosing a celebrity who fits perfectly within it.

The Grammy-to-Super Bowl Pipeline

The week between the Grammys and the Super Bowl wasn’t accidental. It was a cultural launch ramp.

Carpenter’s trajectory: from Disney to $29 million

Context matters. Sabrina Carpenter didn’t arrive at the Super Bowl from nowhere. She arrived at the peak of an extraordinary growth curve:

Pringles didn’t choose a rising star. They chose a star at the exact inflection point — where critical mass of cultural recognition combines with career momentum.

Grammys February 1, Super Bowl February 8

Carpenter’s Grammy performance wasn’t a separate event from the Pringles campaign. It was the first act of a narrative arc:

1. Grammys (February 1): Carpenter performs “Manchild” to a national audience. The audience has her name, her face, her energy fresh in mind.
2. The week between: The cultural conversation about Carpenter is at its peak. Pringles teasers capitalize on that existing attention.
3. Super Bowl (February 8): The ad airs when the audience is already primed. They don’t need to “discover” who Sabrina Carpenter is. They already know.

That’s what cultural timing does: it reduces cognitive friction. When the audience is already thinking about Carpenter, the ad doesn’t need to introduce her. It can go straight to the story.

The Gen Z insight: “Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now?”

Cultural timing wasn’t just chronological. It was thematic.

The origin of the concept

Diane Sayler revealed that the entire concept was born from a cultural insight: a magazine headline reading “Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now?”

That headline captures a real sentiment in Gen Z culture:

• Fatigue with modern dating and relationships
• Self-deprecating humor about romantic relationships
• A preference for independence over commitment
• The “manchild” as a cultural archetype (men who won’t grow up)

Sayler connected the insight to the brand: “Dating is hard, relationships are hard. Pringles is simple.”

Why this insight works specifically with Carpenter

Carpenter has built her career on this exact cultural territory:

• “Manchild” is literally the song title, with the lyric “And I like my men all incompetent”
• Her humor is defined by flirtatious, self-aware commentary on relationships
• Her aesthetic blends retro romanticism with modern irony
• Her audience instantly recognizes the thematic territory

When Carpenter builds an ideal boyfriend out of Pringles because real men are disappointing, it doesn’t feel like an agency script. It feels like something she’d say in her own life.

The retro aesthetic as amplifier

The ad is set to Fred Buscaglione’s “Guarda che luna,” giving it a deliberately retro, French New Wave feel. This choice wasn’t decorative:

• It matches Carpenter’s vintage aesthetic (influenced by the ‘60s-’70s)
• It was shot on film (not digital), a first for Pringles
• It creates a humorous contrast between classic romanticism and the absurdity of falling in love with a snack
• It reinforces that this is an entertainment piece with artistic sensibility, not a conventional commercial

The multi-week teaser strategy: four waves of engagement

The Super Bowl stopped being a one-day event. The smartest brands treat it as a campaign arc that spans weeks.

The complete timeline

Why this works better than the “single moment” model

The traditional Super Bowl model: air the ad, pray for virality, measure the next day.

The Pringles multi-week model:

• Extends the engagement window from 1 day to 4+ weeks
• Generates conversation before the game, building anticipation
• Creates multiple entry points: you don’t need to watch the Super Bowl to see the ad
• Builds content layers: teaser, full ad, extended cut, memes
• Maximizes ROI on an investment that, all-in, was likely $12-15 million

Sarah Reinecke, Mars SVP, noted the social rollout generated 26,000+ new Instagram followers for Pringles in January alone. That’s before the ad aired during the game.

Applying cultural timing to your brand

You don’t need a Super Bowl. You need to understand your audience’s cultural cycles and align your content with them.

Map your audience’s cultural moments

Every audience has a cultural calendar. Identify yours:

For LATAM audiences:

• Liga MX: Playoffs, derbies, finals — massive attention spikes with passionate audiences
• Latin Grammys and festivals: Premios Lo Nuestro, Festival de Viña del Mar, Premios Juventud — concentrated attention on music culture
• Dia de Muertos, Carnival, national holidays: Moments of intense cultural identity where audiences are emotionally open
• Reggaeton and urban music: Bad Bunny, Karol G, Peso Pluma — album drops and tours as cultural moments

For global/US audiences:

• Awards seasons (Grammys, Oscars, Emmys) as launch ramps
• Sporting events as massive attention concentrators
• Cultural releases (movies, albums, series) as campaign context

Build your own “Grammy-to-Super Bowl pipeline”

The principle is simple: identify Event A that primes your audience, and launch your campaign at Event B that capitalizes on that attention.

Example for a fashion brand in LATAM:

1. Event A (prime): Artist wears your brand at the Latin Grammys
2. Interim period: Teasers, social content, behind-the-scenes
3. Event B (campaign): Collection launch during fashion week or next cultural moment

The anticipation ramp strategy

Don’t launch everything at once. Build waves:

1. Week -4: First teaser (generate expectation)
2. Week -3 to -1: Progressive content (build anticipation)
3. Week 0: Full launch (capitalize on accumulated attention)
4. Week +1: Extension content (keep the conversation alive)

Each wave feeds the next. The result is a campaign arc that lives for weeks instead of dying in hours.

Related resources:

• Content as Entertainment: The Complete Framework
• The Brand Recall Crisis in the Celebrity Era
• Product as Character vs. Celebrity as Image

Know your audience’s next cultural moments? At Mazkara Studio we map your cultural calendar and build campaigns that arrive at exactly the right time. Get your free consultation →