The new one looks a bit to corporate a face for potato chips.

I guess theyREALLY want you to know that they are READY SALTED :-)

ChrisL

looks very americanised to me...

I was actually going to say that it seemed a bit Japanese’d to me - Americanized? I guess these days that’s getting to be about the same.

I wonder if they’re owned by Frito Lay? If not, they are probably trying to avoid getting sued for completely biting their bag and logo designs. Now they’re just mostly biting it.

They are both part of Pepsico.
Tim

Agreed Chris...I got really confused because my mind told me it should be a Frito Lay bag of chips, but it wasn’t!

Maybe they needed to stress the ready salted over the actual brand name. :^/

What they’ve just done to Doritos is much more ridiculous. Apparently even corn flour and cheese powder must be marketed as Extreme Global Digital Wireless Broadband Streaming Ringtone Technology! Remember what a Doritos bag looked like four or five redesigns ago? Irregular quadrilaterals behind each letter, alternating orange and yellow? You wouldn’t have confused that with an MP3 player, now would you.

Where did they get the red from?!

Down here down under (Australia), “Salt & Vinegar” or “Salted” crisp flavours are usually represented by purple (sometimes blue) packaging. The old Walkers package used Green for Salt & Vinegar? Isn’t green usually reserved for Chicken flavours? I guess what I am saying here, are these colours localised? Are most Salt & Vinegar packs Red or Green over there in America? ;)

Yuk, by the way.

If i remember correctly a few years ago Walkers used blue for Salt and Vinegar and green for Cheese and Onion, but they suddenly switched them round, which confused a lot of people — In England I’ve found a yellow/mustard colour is reserved for chicken flavors.

The new design isn’t very kind to the eye, the READY SALTED doesn’t fit in with the rest of the design, and i feel it overlaps the Walkers logo too much — The old typeface had a more traditional potato crisp feel to it, the newer one is very American.

Cerulean could you post any images of the Doritos packages, i haven’t seen any changes there yet; what do you mean by “Apparently even corn flour and cheese powder must be marketed as Extreme Global Digital... ...”

> They are both part of Pepsico
I really didn’t know that Pepsico has so many brands under their name. Although it doesn’t surprise me...

It appears that the same brand is called Lay’s in America and Walkers in England. Similar to the Burger King/Hungry Jack’s relationship.

Go to this page, on which you can see the penultimate Doritos design. Then click on any of the individual flavors in the list to see the design appearing in our markets now. The old old design can’t be found on the web anywhere...

It’s called Sabritas in here and a smiley face has been part of the mark since I can remember.

Héctor

Ah, in England I think Doritos are still using their old design

In the US potato chip bag colors have changed a bit over the years but generally are Yellow for plain/salted, Brown to Black for BBQ, Cyan Blue for Salt and vinagar, and Orange for Cheese flavors. Of course there are zillions of other flavors, but those are the most common and long standing on potato chips in the US. Most other American chip companies seem to follow the lead of Frito Lay when it comes to the colors used on chip bags.

Cerulean - I like that old Dorito bag too, everything since is just too...

Geoff - Chicken flavors? On chips? Salt and Vinagar used to be represented by a Yellow-green, but it has recientlly changed to Cyan Blue, I think they needed Green for the Dill Pickle chip bag. I do think colours are localised, as well as spellings and tastes. Check out these:

Yes, those are real! Chatpata Chaska flovored Kurkure (tasted like Cilantro/Coriander on a Cheeto-like substrate) and Magic Masala flavored Lays. No BBQ or meat flavors in India.

The best-selling brand in Finland and their red ready-salted bag

http://www.taffel.fi/tuotteet.asp?tuote=9

http://www.taffel.fi/tuotteet.asp?tuote=12

Green is for dill and grass onion, Yellow for cheesy ones. No chicken flavored here.
No Walkers or Lays in the shops either, but Pringles yes.

Walkers and Lays both look like a red ribbon wrapped around a tennis ball to me.

I do see that all around the world, bags of chips have that same tacky junk food look.

Mili, I somehow see Finland as being much more wholesome and not having junk food, just nicely home-cooked meals around a warm fire—forgive my stupid romantic notions :-)

ChrisL

Chris,
Unfortunately it’s not all warm fire and home-cooked food here. In fact, mainly no fireplaces, but plenty of microwave meals, Mac Donald’s in every suburb, obese kids with giant Coke bottles munching chocolate bars or crisps where ever you go...

Oh, time to go shopping for the ingresients of the evening meal, I don’t use micro meals ;-) The kids will be hugry today after skiing for hours at school.

I recall hazily that as a crisp consuming child in the UK in the 80s/90s, the universal standard was dark blue for ready salted (plain), cyan for salt and vinegar and green for cheese and onion and all the leading brands (Golden Wonder, KP, Smiths) which were near identical, followed this scheme.

Then Walkers swiftly rose to the top, the other brands disappeared or reappeared as “USP” brands (square/ridged/thick cut) and then Walkers then took advantage of their position to not only switch the Cheese and Onion and Salt and Vinegar colour schemes but also bring in red for Ready Salted.

Don’t get me started on Marathons becoming Snickers, or Opal Fruits becoming Starburst.

Say it isn’t so Mili, it is just like America except for the skiing part. I am going to go home and rethank my wife for being such a good cook (and a lovely lady too).

ChrisL

Elliot, Twix used to be called Raider over here...

And Chris, yes, Finland is just another little America. We even have some car enthusiasts who drive around in old 1950’s American cars on Summer friday evenings.

err...i am not sure why you are lamenting the passing of the other packet, they both seem as bad as each other.

other interesting ’crisp news’ that UK viewers may not have picked up is that golden wonder went bust recently, a shame as they were the brand i used to eat when i was at school (before i worried about whether these things were good or bad for you) this is becuase of walkers, their buy-out by pepsico and their marketing tactics, before that they just one of many crisp companies in the uk.

I wasn’t lamenting the passing, rather the missed opportunity, although the old version had a little more character and presence than the dull ’free font’ unconsidered appearance of the new one.
Tim

It used to be that “Salt ’n Vinegar” chips in the US invariably had the Union Jack featured somewhere in the design. Now it seems like blue dominates, possibly inherited from the old color schemes. This is the brand I usually get.
This post doesn’t make me cry as much as it makes me hungry.

...what were they thinking?

a) It seemed like a good idea at the time
b) Newness for its own sake (novelty, or “a change is as good as a holiday”)

I was actually going to say that it seemed a bit Japanese’d to me - Americanized? I guess these days that’s getting to be about the same.

We have had a rash of the same kind of non-sensical generic food packaging makeovers here in Australia, particularly potato chip brands and quickie-snack products found in supermarket freezer aisles. So I guess this dubious style isn’t uniquely American.

For about the last 2 years there has been a lot of twaddle from brand managers I work with about brand positioning and re-positioning, niche consumer appeal and “leveraging” consumer products. It translates into lots of pointless and stoopid packaging redesigns.

Quite possibly the font used on the new Walkers package is an attempt to differentiate the brand from other potato chip brands that use a flair serif (as the previous Walkers pack did). Flair serifs are common on chip packets.

That, however, doesn’t excuse the awful new font they’ve used. It isn’t organic enuff for a food product. Nuts!

Maybe they needed to stress the ready salted over the actual brand name. :^/

:^) That is exactly the kind of thing I’m on about—-brand sub-positioning and niche appeal. The brand image takes a back seat to the directive of some farcical “consumer focus group study”.

j a m e s

I’m still wishing we had that masala flavor here in the US.

looks like

to me (which was done by dalton maag).

My personal favourite branding in the potato crisp market is Mr Tayto, the Irish brand leader:

this dubious style isn’t uniquely American
Yes I was wondering if it was fair to attribute this bland genericism just to US. I didn’t realise that pointless sun/crisp thing was so widespread, everytime I see it I think of something going to repro with a missing picture.

I’m still wishing we had that masala flavor here in the US.
Tikka Masala isn’t Indian, apparently it was invented in Glasgow when someone asked for “gravy” to go on their Tandoori chicken.

Mr Tayto at least has charm.

Tim

i like utz potato chips.

http://nationalmssociety.org/nyn/more_content/walk/utz.gif

< J o s e p h >

Something about the extended K leg in the new design makes it much easier to misread as WANKERS on first glance.

My guess on the redesign had nothing to do with the packaging but with the marketing of no trans fats. That alone is a reason to change the packaging. The average consumer will think if its not bad for me, it must be good.

Offtopic but growing up with these spoiled me to no end...absolutely delicious. The Dark Russet variety are unreeaall. :-D

I can see the slogan now: Cape Cod Potato Chips made from real Sea Gull droppings!

Made from cow chips perhaps? :-)

ChrisL

Has anyone else checked out the Link that Joseph posted to the utz potato chips logo?

Now that is a delicious logo *hmm* - never heard of the brand, but suddenly overcome by an urge to buy a bag...

Utz is a very popular American brand of chips. It may not have made it over the pond :-)

ChrisL

Those Utz look cool. At least the logo is pleasing.

In denmark the leading chips brand is called KIMs
See this link for a stupid web page http://www.kims.dk/
The guy appearing there is the main character in the branding through Kims Chips tv commercials. He is ridiculous.

Magnus