It’s great when you knowingly and willingly fall for blatant marketing ploys, so it was with relish that I bought two packets of Walkers crisps, solely because they offered the chance to try a jolly-looking range of ‘World Cup flavours’.
Walkers crisps don’t have the same cachet in English culture as Taytos do in Irish, because we grew up with Golden Wonder, which were much more like Taytos in consistency, but inasmuch as Cheese and Onion is the default Tayto flavour, so we Brits fall for Walkers Salt and Vinegar every time. Except, of course, when they are pumping our heads full of marketing nonsense, and making the packets look like the national flags of footballing nations who qualified for this summer's World Cup.
So when himself The Body arrived round for a cuppa, there was on my coffee table a packet of British Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding flavour crisps, sitting next to a packet of German Bratwurst flavour crisps.
Well, even if I haven’t lived there since 1989, I am a Londoner, so I have to start off with the English versus the Germans, innit!
“What’s these all about?” asked The Body, looking at the colourful new packs.
“Oh, that’s the new World Cup flavour crisps. See, there’s the English Roast Beef flavour, the German Bratwurst flavour, and then there’s the Brazilian Salsa flavour and the-”
- quick as a flash, The Body interrupted -
“And the Irish Sour Grapes flavour!”
Laugh? Yes we did, as I silently marvelled yet again at the speed of his wit, together with his great ability to mock his country's hypocrisy.
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2 comments:
We all fall for marketing, did you know that all the popular brands of Irish crisp(or cripses if your from Roscommon) are all made by one compsny (Largo foods).
Often I have heard people argue in pubs on the merits of different brands, whether Tayto, Kings or Hunky Dory's were the best brand. Then one day I was working up a backroad in Meath and the manager came out and gave me a box with several brands.
Where have all our heroes gone next thing we will find out is that Einstein did not fail maths as a kid
Absolutely - there a 4 companies that control 98% of what we eat. Even the smaller brands are just farmhouse labels of conglomerates.
In the meantime, what about other flavours for world cup crisps ...French finger food flavour?
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