What can a discontinued 49p bag of crisps tell us about brand health? Quite a lot, actually. Richard Walker reflects on the disappearance of Spicy Tomato Snaps, and what it says about nostalgia, brand relevance, consumer behaviour and the difference between loving a brand and actually buying it.
A very productive day in the Manchester office on Monday.
One where we (informally) approved as a collective the very excellent idea to do our own Mustard World Cup of Crisps. Because other iterations of this we’ve seen elsewhere on socials recently are just plain WRONG frankly.
And one where I was SHOCKED and genuinely (yes, genuinely) saddened to hear about the passing of Spicy Tomato flavoured Snaps.
Snaps would have been my absolutely shoe-in, number one choice, first-pick nomination for the World Cup of crisps. I’d argue there’s no more satisfying savoury snack known to mankind.
But then it turned out that Snaps were BRUTALLY discontinued by Smiths / Walker’s / PepsiCo in October 2025.
After 50 years, gone. Nobody thought to even tell me. I just thought and assumed the local Spar were out of stock.
The cathartic solution for me, obviously, is to put my feelings down in a blog, and to ask some soul-searching questions – and maybe some rhetorical ones too. And whilst I’m at it, I’ll make some tenuous research links as well.
Why do some brands disappear loudly, while others disappear quietly?
Lilt’s disappearance felt like a cultural moment. Snaps disappearing seems to have passed many people, including me, by.
Brand relationships can be highly personal and full of meaning. This is why we do qualitative research and don’t just go around asking “do people like this brand?”.
We have to consider the breadth and the depth of brand relationships. Research can explore whether people still buy a brand, notice it, seek it out, talk about it, or whether they would feel a genuine loss when it is gone. The extent to which the brand resonated through popular culture will also undoubtedly be a big factor. Lilt had the Lilt man, the accompanying soundtrack and the sunshine. The Snaps dragon maybe didn’t work quite as hard.
One person’s crisp nostalgia is another’s “couldn’t-give-a-toss”
It was probably only the Gen X in the room that’d even heard of Snaps, never mind savoured their wonderfulness.
Maybe Snaps just leaned too hard into whatever nostalgia it had, with zero relevance to younger audiences.
Differences in relevance aren’t just generational, however. Across FMCG categories, some people are loyalists. Some are novelty-seekers. Some are promotion-led. Some only care about what goes in a meal deal. Some might have a “corner shop childhood classics” repertoire that they talk about fondly but rarely buy.
This shows why brands need to properly understand current behaviour and perceptions, not just inherited assumptions about who their customers are. I’ve talked before (recently) about how brands lose relevance when customer behaviour, journeys and value perceptions change. The same applies here. A brand that still feels hugely relevant to one audience (me) can be virtually invisible to another.
Brand love is not the same as brand health
People can love the idea of a brand more than they love buying it. That’s why brand trackers need to separate and interrogate the different stages of the journey. Awareness tells us whether people know you. Consideration tells us whether you’re genuinely in the running. Preference tells us whether you’re winning the choice. And behaviour tells us whether any of that is translating into actual buying. There are plenty of metrics to choose from, but what are the key ones to understand a healthy brand?
What should brand tracking actually measure?
There are so many metrics to choose from, but what are the key ones to understand a healthy brand? As a minimum, we need to ensure the tracking has coverage across three connected layers:
- MENTAL AVAILABILITY: Awareness, Familiarity and Salience
- BRAND CHOICE: Consideration and Preference
- BEHAVIOUR: Usage, loyalty and advocacy
And this is where Category Entry Points become particularly useful. We’ve talked recently about the importance of understanding how different brands perform from a “mental market share” perspective across the different situations where a product or service might be the solution.
For a savoury snack, being a well-known brand isn’t enough. You might want to know which brands come to mind for a lunchbox, a meal deal, a night in front of the telly, a road trip or simply “I fancy something salty”.
Being healthy as a brand isn’t just about being known or loved. It’s about being mentally available and relevant in the moments when people might buy, and then being chosen when the opportunity arises.
Carry on regardless
Snaps probably won’t be remembered as one of the world’s great brands. But that’s precisely why I find its disappearance interesting.
Brand health isn’t about whether a handful of people are prepared to mourn you when you’re gone. It’s about whether you’re still relevant, salient and available to enough people, in enough of the moments that matter.
The Mustard world cup of crisps will carry on regardless. I’m looking forward to the discussions and debates, as well as the product sampling.
Perhaps Mustard colleagues will see if AI can predict the winner (again).
However it pans out, it will be interesting to also see how world cup popularity correlates with consumption. As with Snaps (RIP), perhaps the brands we love (and the brands we miss) aren’t always the brands we most often buy.
At Mustard, we help brands understand not just whether people know or like them, but how they fit into people’s lives, when they come to mind and what actually drives behaviour.
If you’re reviewing your brand tracker, trying to understand declining relevance or simply wondering whether your customers still care, get in touch.