I like to joke that I read every obituary published every day, because, as wonderful as AI can be, I don’t trust it to find local funeral home news. As a result, I have an army of Google Alerts keeping me up-to-date with the “smaller” news items, which helps me provide national, local coverage of the industry.
I don’t usually see a lot of my own stories reflected back, and even more rarely does a story I was covering early spark a raft of both local and national coverage. Even more rarely (never) is it a fun, positive story. This week, though, there’s been something of a perfect storm of lighthearted and even buoyant.
On the off chance this is the first you’re hearing of it, funeral director Dan Madden (@danthefuneralman) was tapped by Pringles as a spokesperson.
I feel like two things captured people’s imagination. The first is the ironic shock-value of this particular pairing. I mean, being buried in a Pringles can has a Big Lebowski “most modest receptacle” incongruity. But it’s that very incongruity that opens the conversation. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that millions of people who used to have zero opinion about urns have them now.
And it looks like it’s just the beginning.
Pringles is getting a ton of earned media over this, and not only for the shock value. Madden isn’t playing into any stereotypes. We know he carries himself like a modern funeral director, but that’s not an image that makes it into popular culture very often. This is way beyond Death-Tok as far as its ability to capture the public’s imagination.
Here’s a brief roundup of the stories I’ve seen in the last few days.
Beyond all the consumer media coverage, the promotion has made it into B2B-style magazines and websites that cover marketing and the PR industry. Including this story in PR Insider, this one in Famous Campaigns, and this one in PR Week, where it’s compared to all the other “spooky season” promos. Put simply, this success is catching people’s eyes as a potential template. Maybe it’s a shift toward the literal [rofessional influencer. That is, a person who is actually a working expert and also an influencer.
What makes Madden’s rise so remarkable isn’t just that he went from his signature FashUrn Show to a commercial shoot for a global snack brand (although that is pretty cool). It’s that he’s doing it while actively running Stark Memorial in Salem, Ohio. He’s reported a 30% business growth at his funeral home tied directly to his social media presence, proving that authenticity and engaging content actually translate into community trust and real-world results. He’s relatable and still doing the job. for real. Every day.
For an industry that has traditionally shied away from the spotlight, Madden is demonstrating that consumers are hungry for transparency, personality, and human connection. He isn’t asking directors to grab an urn and hit a fashion runway; he’s showing us that when you meet people where they are with creativity and humor, you can destigmatize end-of-life planning and elevate the entire profession in the process. It’s proof that good content really can open doors nobody ever saw coming, even if those doors are even doors shaped like a Pringles can-shaped.
