The marketing of Ready Salted Chipsticks and why it doesn't make any sense!

Marketing. Used everywhere. There is very little in your life that doesn’t have it backing it up. Have a look around you. I work in retail, so there are hundreds of examples for me to see in one glance round my office and I’m sure there is in your world too.

If you’re reading this on a computer, phone or tablet I’m guessing that it was advertised before you bought it, or there are little pop ups coming at you on the side of the page. Jeez-o, even Facebook advertises itself. Advertising is designed to say how awesome you would be if you had something.

How old are you? Male or female? Tall or short? All of these things get pulled together for something called “demographics”. Something that means marketing can be tailored to you and will of course make you look, feel, sound, smell, act, live, work better.

Sadly though, when I spoke to Walkers about why Ready Salted Chipsticks had been discontinued they advised

“There are many reasons why a product is discontinued, but usually it’s because sales are lower than expected…”

When I queried them on their statistics and marketing campaign I got stonewalled.

“I regret to inform you that I am unable to provide you with the specific information and data relating to the discontinuation of this product”

What I fail to understand is that if sales were low, what was done to increase them? With good marketing it is possible to make almost any product desirable. I don’t recall any promotions, adverts, even background shots in TV series to bump them up. Ready Salted Chipsticks were discontinued during a time that retro was “in”, which in my mind was a perfect opportunity and was missed by the Walkers marketing team (we’ll cover this in another blog).

So why, with all this available to them did they not use it? Why were Ready Salted Chipsticks allowed to fade into oblivion? Despite their comments above, I really think that Walkers made the decision to axe them without due consideration of all the options.

Sorry Walkers, but I think it is a case that you are unable to provide me with specific information because you don’t have it.