The ‘Do us a Flavour! Win a Packet!’ on-pack promotion, which launches in July and runs until May 2009, will be backed by a £10m advertising and marketing campaign, the biggest investment that Walkers has made behind a single campaign in its 60 year history.
This category-leading initiative is designed to achieve unprecedented levels of consumer engagement with the Walkers brand by driving taste and quality in an innovative way.
For the “Do us a flavour! Win a packet” competition, consumers are invited to send Walkers their new flavour ideas (a flavour name and picture of what inspired them).
A panel of judges, led by Heston Blumenthal will pick six finalists, which will then go on sale and the public will get to vote for their favourite.
The winner will receive £50,000 plus 1% of all future sales. Five runners-up will also walk away with a cool £10,000 each.
Walkers is an iconic British brand with total UK sales across all its crisps, snacks and nuts brands of just under £1bn.
Walkers products are eaten by more than 10 million consumers in Britain every day. The brand is famous for its flavours and although all consumers have their favourites they are always seeking something completely new to try.
The new promotion forms part of the 2008 Home Grown marketing campaign and comes hot on the heels of the hugely successful Brit Trips promotion which attracted more than 3.5 million hits to its website, more than 550,000 registered consumers and more than 31 million points collected across the period.
The ‘Do us a Flavour! Win a Packet’ campaign is fun and interactive and works in three key stages:
1. The nation is encouraged to submit creative ideas for a new Walkers flavour, accompanied by a picture of what inspired that flavour. Entries can be made by text, online or post. (14 July 2008 – 10 October 2008)
2. A judging panel, led by three Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal, will pick six finalists whose new Walkers Crisps flavours will be made and sold across the UK. Each finalist will win a £10,000 cash prize. (10 October 2008 – 18 January 2009)
3. Over a five-month period the nation will vote for their favourite out of the six flavours by text, online or experiential (19 January 2009 – 2 May 2009). The winning flavour will join the Walkers flavours ‘Hall of Fame’ and the winner will win £50,000 plus receive 1% of any subsequent sales of their flavour. Five runners-up will each receive £10,000.
To encourage the nation to enter, Walkers will communicate with consumers through a fun on pack design, plus a variety of attention grabbing POS and displays in store.
Furthermore, the £10m campaign will include TV and through-the-line activity featuring brand ambassador Gary Lineker. The TV campaign shows Gary Lineker getting deluged with flavour suggestions. Breaking on August 11, it will run for nine weeks.
Radio advertising, online activity, consumer media PR and extensive in-store display will also support the promotion from launch right through until the overall winner is chosen in May 2009.
To kick off the promotion and to motivate and inspire consumers, Walkers is launching Gary Lineker’s very own Special Lamb Curry flavour crisps. The limited edition crisps will appear on the shelves from 20 July. The new flavour will be available in multipacks of six with an RSP of £1.55 and in Big Eat format with an RSP of £0.50.
Walkers managing director Richard Evans says: “This innovative and interactive campaign is a real first for the category. It’s the biggest Walkers campaign we have ever run and will prompt real consumer engagement right across the nation. Walkers is a fun, British brand and the nation’s favourite crisp. We are renowned for producing irresistible flavours and have had many suggestions from our consumers for new flavours over the years. We’re now letting them decide what flavours they would like to see on the shelf.
“We anticipate a massive response and urge retailers to stock up on Walkers using prominent promotional point of sale to drive sales. Doing us a flavour, really could win them a packet!”
Running across all core Walkers Crisps products, promotional packs will be available in-store from 20 July 2008.
