Percy the Pretzel Rekindles America's Love for Pretzels

Where The Buffalo Roam (WTBR) has partnered with the North American Pretzel Council (NAPC) to create Let's Get Back to Pretzels Again, a PSA campaign aimed at rekindling America’s love for Pretzels — and getting the country back on the snack track. Harkening to a time when Pretzels were the standard-bearer of the American snack experience, the campaign celebrates simplicity, tradition, and American ingenuity. The campaign debuts today, April 1st, across digital and social platforms because, apparently, that's where consumers are.

The spots feature Father Jon, a rugged everyman from Pennsylvania — the Pretzel Capital of America — who shoots straight about life with a fistful of Pretzels. The campaign also marks Percy the Pretzel’s triumphant return to the screen (Knotting Hill, Mr. Twist Goes to Washington, Some Like It Knot). Additional spots will air throughout the spring.

Fans can get twisted in the movement and show their pride by sharing their favourite Pretzel moments on social media (#PretzelAgain). 

According to Julius Snyder, an associate brand strategist in training at the NAPC, the campaign was initiated in response to an increasingly saturated snackscape, where everyone is talking about VR, AI, SAS, and 5G, mirroring an America that has lost its snacking way. “Let's Get Back to Pretzels Again is more than a rallying cry for Pretzel sales; it’s a stand against the existential threat of an increasingly divided and Pretzel-less society. And what brings people together? Pretzels. The recipe is pretty straightforward: roll, twist, pinch, salt, and bake with love. That’s America. That’s Pretzels.”

Instead of relying on consumer data, WTBR took an anecdotal approach to developing the campaign concept, relying on their instincts and passion for Pretzels.

“The snackscape has gotten overly complicated and perhaps a bit too cute,” remarks WTBR executive producer Tim Pries. “You used to walk down the snack aisle and see Pretzels, a potato, a little beef jerky — that was fine. But now, there are seven different flavours of each, and maybe one bag of Pretzels. It’s jackasserie, malarkey, gobbledygook. Our client didn’t like that, and neither did we. It felt personal.”

WTBR shot the spots in Pennsylvania, where 60% of America’s Pretzels are produced and 80% are consumed. The Keystone State is also home to Pretzel Again spokesperson Father Jon, who joined the campaign by happenstance. WTBR executive producer PJ Koll discovered him eating Pretzels at a convenience store. The two immediately hit it off and headed out into the field — quite literally — to shoot content that eight years later, unbeknownst to them, would become a worldwide campaign for Pretzels.

“Father Jon embodies the Pretzel in all of us — and America — because he has lived here his whole life,” says Tim. “He was a true pro and perfectly capable of taking direction from himself. You could only tell him to walk and talk through a field so many times before he’d say, ‘That’s enough of that, now get off my land.’”

“This campaign proves that good content is evergreen,” adds WTBR’s director of unsourced claims, Brian L. Perkins. “If you shoot great footage and no one buys it, just keep it in a shoebox because you just may strike rolled gold.”

Casting Percy the Pretzel — rumoured to be an original member of the Takis snack team before leaving over creative differences — was equally essential to this campaign.

“Percy’s got great moves with his ties to vaudeville and the original Three Stooges,” remarks Brian. “It took some convincing due to his aggressive legal team, but with the financial realities he needed to address, the stars aligned.”

Percy the Pretzel sings the catchy campaign jingle, which Tim and Brian wrote while stuck in a traffic jam on a road trip. They enlisted jingle maestro Andrew Duncan (California Olive Ranch) to produce the track in the style of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
“Brian initially wanted to use the ‘Snap, Crackle, Pop’ jingle, but Andy said that’s illegal,” recalls Tim. “But I always keep a bag of Pretzels in the car, so it made sense to abandon the war room and brainstorm a jingle on America's highways and byways.”

“People don't sing their thoughts as much as they used to – and they should, probably,” adds Brian. “The nostalgic jingle reflects the ethos of the Pretzels campaign – getting back to basics. We’ve strayed from four-part harmonies, xylophones, and now Pretzels. We are bringing it all back.”

Tim says the collaboration with the North American Pretzel Council ultimately reflects the core brand values of the organisation - liberty, justice, and, of course, Pretzels.

“Thankfully, the client was largely unresponsive, giving us the creative freedom to run with our ideas.”