Frito-Lay’s Walkers brand dominates the UK potato chips category, and the brand’s distribution strength and heavy investment in marketing will no doubt continue to see it stay that way. However, Golden Wonder is looking to cause trouble by mocking its archrival and reclaiming consumers’ nostalgia for the Golden Wonder brand.

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The Snack Factory is relaunching its recently acquired Golden Wonder potato crisps as a no-nonsense crisps brand. The brand will use the strapline “Where a crisp is a crisp”, encouraging consumers to challenge the trend towards more sophisticated crisps flavours and assortments.


The Snack Factory will be hoping to stir up the category, which continues to be dominated by the Walkers brand. Golden Wonder will aim to reclaim some of its former glory as a top-selling crisps brand – a position that has fallen by the wayside somewhat, due to a lack of investment. Meanwhile, the Walkers crisps brand achieved reported sales of £245m (US$407.9m) in the year to June 2003, far ahead of any of its rivals or indeed Frito-Lay’s other leading crisps brands.


Having a category so dominated by one player is rarely good for the consumer and most likely Golden Wonder has researched what it is that consumers do not like about the category and in particular with Walkers crisps. Golden Wonder’s marketing campaign will mock the use of the more sophisticated flavours that are appearing in the snacks category and Walkers’ reliance on celebrity endorsement. It will also make fun of Walkers for changing the traditional colouring for salt and vinegar and cheese and onion flavoured crisps.


Golden Wonder should be able to appeal to consumers’ sense of nostalgia somewhat, since many crisps consumers grew up eating Golden Wonder. In fact, the strength of feeling that some have over their beloved crisps brands was demonstrated when a petition was signed by enough consumers to reinstate (albeit on a trial run) the previously delisted Scampi & Lemon variant of sister brand Nik Naks.

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It is not enough to simply have a crack at your competitors – Golden Wonder needs to offer a point of differentiation for itself. However, the considerable marketing push behind the relaunch of Golden Wonder should help to stir up the category that has been under Walkers’ direction so completely for so long.


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