Is the launch of 6 new world cup flavour by lay's justified or adding to the confusion of the brand reality?

"Is the launch of six new world cup flavours by lay’s justified os would it confuse the brand loyal customers?"

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Anshul Kumar,BIT Noida

Lay’s, the global leader in the saltynack industry, enjoys huge popularity with its customers and has earned consistently large profits from its business. From customer’s perspective, introduction of new flavours would be a clear positive on the basis of conventional thinking.The reason being, Lay’s is a renowned brand and with the introduction of new flavors, could expect that customers who have developed trust in the brand would not have hesitation in not only accepting but welcoming new variants in the product portfolio. It could also be argued that new flavors would entice existing customers as well as possibly gain new ones. From Frito Lay’s perspective, adding to the existing offering would leverage the existing brand equity and enable inexpensive market launch of new products. It could also be viewed as a competitive thrust to gain advantage over its rivals in the market place with an enhanced product offering. The firm would be able to spread the cost of advertising and promotion over a larger group of variants and thereby bring down unit marketing cost which should in turn contribute to improved profits and profitability.
The company should do a thorough study of the sales performance of its existing variants. Those variants which show a declining sale trend or have reached a plateau can be discontinued. Such products can be replaced by new ones.
It should be the effort of every firm to keep its existing customers happy and to attract new customers. An obvious area for this critical marketing requirement would be new product introduction. So this is a step towards the same objective, which is taking advantage of World Cup for its new offering.

Counter-view

Amrita Banga,NMIMS

You go to a store to buy a packet of chips of your favourite brand. You know the flavour you want but what you see on the display is a number of new flavours which look almost same as what you buy ordinarily and the shopkeeper is trying his level best to persuade you to buy the new flavors that he has just stocked, wasting your time and his energy.
This is the story behind every shopper who knows which flavour he likes and wants to buy that. With the company trying to push new flavours in the forefront, more often than not, the old flavours are pushed to the background irritating the customers who have been company’s regular buyers for a long time.
Moreover, how many of these flavours would actually be sustained is another question because most of these flavours are launched near some event to grab consumers attention and interest and are killed after a few months. It’s not for the first time that Lay’s has launched new flavours or has held a competition related to it. This technique has been used by them before also to spike their sales and is being repeated because of positive result it generated, not taking into account the discomfort it causes for the brand and flavour loyal customers.
Adding on to this grievance is launching of new brands of chips like by Parle etc. which have same color packaging done as Lay’s to confuse the customer. In such a scenario, when in a shop the customer sees a variety of bag of chips he is bound to get confused and lose faith if the flavor that he picked out doesn’t please his taste buds!