5 Minutes with… Chris Bellinger
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Chris Bellinger’s pathway into advertising is akin to many others in our industry - full of happy accidents. From a law school plan to a college design course to a detour into account management, he eventually landed in the creative department - helped along by being fired early in his career.
For the past almost seven years, Chris has called PepsiCo Foods US home - today, he is the US chief creative officer for what is the second largest food and beverage brand on the planet. Within that role he leads its in-house creative agency, D3 - what started out making short-form videos for YouTube and had one full-time person is now a 360 agency with an array of capabilities across 32 different PepsiCo Foods brands.
Chris’ brain is wired to absorb everything from TikToks to Netflix plot twists, which he uses to bring a culture-first mentality to his role. This year alone has led to multiple Super Bowl campaigns and a slew of new product launches. LBB’s Addison Capper spoke with him to find out more.
LBB> You found your footing in advertising as an account manager. What led you to eventually migrate to more creative roles?
Chris> So I was actually a designer in college – and then when I took a campaigns course, they told me that I would get to present and engage with clients a lot more if I were on the account side. I always loved the personal connection with people and figuring out how they think, so I thought I’d give that a shot. I fell in love with presenting so I didn’t want to lose that piece of the puzzle, but then I was fired from the account side for not being organised enough (shocker). But I never stopped loving the creative, concepting and building ideas side of things along with creating real connections with the clients – so I eventually migrated back over to my home base of creative.
LBB> What led you to a career in advertising in the first place? Was it somewhat planned or more a happy accident?
Chris> It definitely was not planned. I only ended up in advertising because it’s the only school that would accept all of my transfer credits, so let’s think of it as the best happy accident. I was supposed to be a lawyer or in finance, but then ended up making up ideas for a living (sorry, Dad).
LBB> You joined PepsiCo almost seven years ago, which feels like it was really the early days of in-house creative teams becoming a fixture of our industry. What actually led you to take that role? And how has it evolved over time?
Chris> I can’t believe it’s been almost seven years already! I was already pretty well acquainted with the team – including the starting force behind D3, Ram Krishnan (the current president of PepsiCo Beverages), given they were my clients on the agency side. When I got the offer, I wasn’t totally sure if I wanted to go in-house yet. But worst case, I would just take another gig, and best case, we build something iconic with household brand names. D3 started out making short-form videos for YouTube and we had one full-time person. Now, it’s a full 360 agency with so many capabilities (from partnerships to social media to studios and more) across 32 different PepsiCo Foods brands. It’s wild to think about where we started several years ago to where we are now – and we’re only continuing to grow and evolve! But, it’s important to know that it’s a living being - what got the in-house model here won’t take us to the next step of what brands need in the future.
LBB> When we spoke last year, you spoke a lot about moving at the speed of culture and how your teams are "dedicated to always being on the pulse of culture.” How do you and the teams live that in practice?
Chris> Yes, the ‘speed of culture’ is a phrase I love. It speaks directly to how our consumers engage with what’s going on around them. But, specifically, in terms of reactive creativity, I have a love/hate relationship with the speed of social – but it’s the closest thing you can do every day to be in touch with the consumer. The biggest part of striking the right balance of speed and creative success is a deep understanding of the brand and recognising what feels like the right content at the time from both brand and cultural relevancy perspectives, while also continuing to remember and centralise our consumer base. However, I’m a big believer of creative teams taking big swings when idea-sharing. I love the wild card ideas that are framed up as ‘I have no idea if we could do this…but what if…’. It's easier to pull back than to push. There is nothing more fun than saying, ‘I love this, but we can’t do it like that; however, we could do it this way.’
LBB> How has 2025 been so far creatively for PepsiCo Foods and the work you are doing for your brands? Looking back, how do you reflect on the work you were involved in at the Super Bowl?
Chris> So far, 2025 has been jampacked for us at PepsiCo Foods! We started out strong with the Super Bowl, where we aired two in-game commercials, Doritos and Lay’s. We shot Lay’s ‘Little Farmer’ the second week of January (yes, you heard that right) and took a massive creative risk by going in a different direction than we typically do for our Super Bowl spots. It’s an emotional story of a girl and her potato, inspired by a real-life Lay’s potato farming family.
Doritos, a brand close to my heart, brought back the iconic ‘Crash the Super Bowl’ campaign where we turn the brand over to consumers to make our ads. The brief? Show us your love of Doritos. That's it. Out of more than 2,000 submissions, our winners – up and coming filmmakers Dylan Bradshaw and Nate Norell – got to see their ad ‘Abduction’ air during Super Bowl LIX and took home $1 million. I was the one to deliver the news to them that they won and be there with them in person while it aired in the stadium on Super Bowl Sunday. It was an epic moment I won’t ever forget!
Amidst the Super Bowl, Cheetos also introduced The Other Hand font – the world’s first font created entirely by the designer’s non-dominant hand. Inspired by the fact that 99% of people eat Cheetos with their dominant hand, we partnered with the team over at Goodby Silverstein & Partners to add a little Cheetos mischief to your font list.
From announcing the three finalists for the Lay’s Do Us A Flavor contest to taking Fritos to Stagecoach to launching new flavours like Cheetos Pizza Puffs and Doritos Golden Sriracha, we’ve had quite the 2025 so far!
LBB> How do you find the challenges of hiring to a place like D3 reflect or differ from when you worked within more classic agencies? And how does what you look for in talent differ?
Chris> I think the one major difference in terms of attracting and hiring talent is just the recognition of PepsiCo Foods – we work on the biggest, most iconic brands. Whereas, at a more traditional agency, the brand names aren’t as attached to the agency’s name. Something I look for – and what I encourage my team to look for – when hiring new talent is eagerness. Not just for the job, but an eagerness to learn, to try new things, to put themselves out there, to take risks. It goes beyond just being willing to dive into the opportunity (which is also great) and into all around readiness to get into the nitty gritty of all that we do as creatives. And, when you work on household name brands like Lay’s, Doritos, Quaker and beyond, that willingness to just dive right in goes a long way when it comes to creating ground-breaking work.
LBB> Growing up, what kind of entertainment were you into? Has any of it stuck with you? And what keeps you busy, happy and/relaxed outside of work these days?
Chris> I’m the oldest of six siblings, five boys and one girl, so growing up, my entertainment was whatever theirs was. My ADHD is front and centre in always wanting to consume stories and content and whatever I can get my hands on. Growing up in that chaos meant that I had to be able to absorb multiple storylines at the same time. Sit at a table of six kids all under 10 years old and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Now I am one of those awful people who relaxes by working. I know, I know… but it really does relax me. So, I am always pretty plugged into social, trends, shows, books, movies, all of it. There is always more and more to be consumed and there is always the next great idea just waiting to be uncovered. I find that I’m constantly taking inspiration from anything and everything I see whether it’s a TikTok, an episode of the newest Netflix show or a LinkedIn post – you name it.
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