Stars of the original “Get Crackin’” campaign for Wonderful Pistachios ran the gamut from D-listers like Snooki and the Winklevoss twins to early internet sensation Keyboard Cat, tragicomic character Mr. Bill and cannapreneur Snoop Dogg, all showing off the personality-defining ways they enjoyed their salty tree nuts.

The catchy tagline appeared in two Super Bowls—via Stephen Colbert and an all-American bald eagle, and Korean pop singer Psy who, of course, did it “Gangnam style.”

And then “Get Crackin’” faded away, much like some of the snide jokes that were timely in the Obama era but would need to be Googled now.

But the campaign has sprung back to life, with The Wonderful Company’s in-house creatives hatching a 2.0 version that sneak peeked last summer with diminutive fan favorite Groot from Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy. 

For its winter 2023 rollout, the ad lineup consists of Humpty Dumpty, the universe and competitive eater Joey Chestnut, with Pac-Man and Boston Dynamics’ robo-dog named Spot still to come.

Replaying the hits

In digging into its own archives, Wonderful Pistachios is the latest brand to dust off and refresh a previous hit: Apple relaunched its iconic iPod “Silhouettes” ads to hype its wireless AirPods in 2021, later adding Harry Styles for global appeal, while MilkPEP memorably brought back “Got Milk?” in 2020 with Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky. ESPN’s legendary “This is SportsCenter” has a new incarnation, as razor-sharp as ever.

Industry vets cite the advantages of revisiting a campaign from yesteryear—built-in awareness—as well as its challenges—retaining its core while rejiggering it enough that it speaks to the consumer of today.

“Who doesn’t love a good comeback?” Josh Paialii, group creative director at The Many, told Adweek. “Especially in Adland, a well-timed, expertly crafted campaign reprise has a way of taking a brand’s IP and making it feel timeless.”

A once-popular campaign from the vault, with its positive associations, translates to “a massive amount of equity,” David Littlejohn, founder and chief creative director at Humanaut, told Adweek. The key is to make it feel fresh and inspired, while “the danger is that an older campaign could feel worn out and make the brand look un-innovative, like they are out of new ideas.”

Long-dormant creative has been a springboard for successful new work, according to Mona Hasan, creative director at Fortnight Collective, who noted the M&Ms spokescandies were first introduced in the 1950s and reawakened in the ’90s, and the ’70s Burger King jingle “Have it your way” returned in the 2000s.

“While the time gap for ‘Get Crackin’ is hardly as big, you could look at the success of those brands as powerful evidence that reviving older campaign equities can be genius if done at the right moment in time in the right way,” Hasan told Adweek.

Speed of culture

The Wonderful Agency’s chief creative officer Margaret Keene, who was at TBWA\Chiat\Day when “Get Crackin’” initially dropped in 2009, said she thought the work was “brilliant” back in the day.

“It was a killer campaign—it was moving at the speed of culture before that was even a thing,” Keene told Adweek. “If you mentioned it, everybody in the industry and outside of it would nod. They all knew it.”

And while resurrecting the platform could prove tricky, Keene shared with Adweek a handful of reasons that Wonderful is redeploying the well-known call to action.

It moved the needle: In the first few months after the “Get Crackin’”debut, the company saw a whopping 233% boost in sales, with Wonderful Pistachios becoming the fifth fastest growing brand in grocery channels, per IRI. The nuts, which previously weren’t at the top of consumers’ shopping lists, started outselling peanuts by almost two-to-one, according to IRI. It was the first-ever industry campaign for the nutrient-rich nut, helping to make the brand “a household name,” Keene said.

It was far-reaching and open-ended: Though there was a start and stop to the original work—which had about 100 iterations through 2016—a revitalized “Get Crackin’” could go on indefinitely, Keene said. And its marketing and media tentacles can spread out over TV, social, digital, experiential, out of home and partnerships.

Previous collaborations linked the pistachios to the blockbuster Angry Birds game, a Muppets movie, Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie and the Disney+ short-form series I Am Groot. Tie-ins will continue to be important to the 2.0 version, with marketers considering a range of opportunities.

It’s ripe for influencers and spectacle: For a distinctly modern and egalitarian edge, the brand is showcasing young talent such as TikTok’s axe-thrower Thoren Bradley, dancer Alex Wong, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson and trick shot experts Daniel and David Hulett, as well as a #GetCrackin hashtag challenge. Fans have responded quickly, logging nearly 50 million cumulative views for the Huletts, Bradley and skater Elladj Baldé videos.

“Get Crackin’” plans to lean into the product’s interactive qualities, hosting more events like a recent professional eating contest in Santa Monica, Calif., featuring Chestnut and other top-ranked competitors.

It bolstered the in-house agency model: Being able to turn ideas around in short order, making decisions with an internal team rather than dealing with an outside agency, can be vital to a culture-based campaign. Keene saw that nimbleness as one of the strongest assets for the original “Get Crackin’” and she’s eager to prove the concept again in 2023 and beyond. 

It was cheeky, nostalgic and often controversial: The purposely unsubtle weed references in Snoop Dogg’s playful 2012 ad, in which he ate pistachios “habitually,” got it banned from network TV. It also stoked more interest and conversation. 

Blending familiar and quirky, the brand also recruited Dennis Rodman, The Village People, Kermit the Frog, Charlie Brown, Crystal the Hangover 2 monkey and Brobee from the trippy kids’ show Yo Gabba Gabba! The mix of stars will continue to be eclectic, Keene said, taking in an even broader range of potential spokespeople and content creators and not shying away from potential hot-button issues.

That “Get Crackin’” has a history of “taking massive swings at culture” is a plus, according to Pailii, though it’s risky to follow in those footsteps. “That is a pretty high bar and benchmark to follow up with the current campaign,” he said.

Drawing from the past has its place, Keene said, but “Get Crackin’” will evolve its humor to fit the current times and provide some light-hearted post-pandemic inspiration for consumers to seize the day.

“There’s a double entendre to ‘Get Crackin’ that says we’ve been through a lot in the past few years,” Keene said. “Now, let’s go do all the things we want to do. That’s the larger brand halo.”