from Nick Cunningham, MD (development), Dynamo Marketing

Sir; The piece on the use of well known personalities in snack brand advertising in the Focus on crisps, nuts and snacks (June 5, p60) raises some key issues about promoting in store.
Many brands spend a lot of time trying to work around the pressure from retailers to price promote. What is the point in growing volume share, when value share could actually go into decline?
PepsiCo’s Christian Jones points out that Gary Lineker has enabled Walkers Crisps to build equity long term and that consumers have empathy with the campaign. This is incredibly valuable. Not only do consumers like the campaign, but so do the trade. Everyone is keen to see the next amusing chapter and by default the new flavour or promotion that the commercial is pushing.
This is why the Lineker platform is such a winner. It can be refreshed creatively and consumers show no sign of becoming indifferent, but more importantly it has ‘legs’ to extend into all of the areas it needs to.
My favourite story is the one about Lineker himself telephoning buyers to arrange meetings for the national account managers to sell in the next instant-win promotion.
The humour, creativity and choice of personality are important. But the brand has really scored by integrating all elements of the mix under one strong campaign and sticking to it over the years.
This is why it’s easier for Walkers to get brand building promotions featured in store, when many other brands continue to find this difficult.
As long as Lineker never publicly falls from grace, Walkers should stick with this winning formula that other brands could learn a lot from.