Dixi-Klo: A brand in need is a brand indeed

 

I woke up in the night during the annual carnival carousing. On the way back from the comfort of our own bathroom I wondered why on earth I’d never blogged about what must be one of Germany’s absolute brand leaders.

It’s a brand whose name has become the generic here, like Tempo. I’m talking about the humble Dixi-Klo. From building sites to Fests of all kinds, here’s a brand that’s not going to save the world, but has certainly saved most of us from nasty spots of bother and embarassment.

The Dixi-Klo was invented, and given its name by a US soldier based in Germany, Fred Edwards. While on manoeuvres in 1973, he identified a gap in the market - presumably through bitter experience - as an alternative to the proverbial convenient grove of trees.

A German company founded Dixi’s main rival, TOI TOI ten years later. Toi Toi Toi  is best translated as “touch wood” - so a remarkably clever brand name all in all. The two businesses fused in 1997 and now give jobs (big and little) to over 4,000 people. TOI TOI & DIXI is said to be “the world’s largest portable restroom provider.”

On the company website, you can even find a Fan Shop, which sells everything from cool bags to drinking flasks to carnival outfits (could cause all sorts of kerfuffle for the inebriated and short-sighted as well as the wearer, I fear). And my favourite - an air freshener to hang in your car.

Who said Germans are short on humour?

I haven’t seen many case histories on TOI TOI & DIXI on LinkedIn, but both are brands that deserve a little more praise. 

The classic question on Meaningful Brands goes along the lines of “which brands would you miss if they were to disappear tomorrow?”

I rest my case. 

RETROWURST: Brand consultancies March 2007

This month’s Retrowurst is less about brands and markets and more about those that earn their living through understanding what brands are, how they work and helping helping them to grow. In March 2007, I examined Germany’s brand consultancy agencies - and came to the conclusion that the choice was more limited than in the English-speaking world. 

Eighteen years is a long time in the world of brands and marketing. 2007 was pre- Byron Sharp’s How Brands Grow (2010) and Les Binet and Peter Field’s The long and the short of it (2013). I also note that the only business-orientated social media network mentioned was Xing. LinkedIn was launched in 2003, but in 2007, it would only have attracted English speakers working internationally.

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My Extrawurst this month is inspired by my recent work with a UK-based International Brand Consultancy which left me wondering why this particular market is so under-developed in Germany.

 

My last month seems to have been one workshop after another and, interestingly, it has given me an opportunity to muse on the German way of doing things and on the UK (or perhaps I should say International) way. This led me to wondering why the market in Germany for Brand and Innovation Consultancy is so underdeveloped, so I have had a quick look into who is there, what they do and a few reasons for why, in my opinion, they are not doing it better.

 

The first point is that there is no lack of companies and individuals in Germany who set themselves up as some sort of Brand Consultant. I suppose that I belong to this motley bunch as well! If one starts with doing a Google search, on something like Markenberatung (Brand Consultancy), there are pages and pages of links. In addition, there are whole networking websites such as www.marketing-boerse.de or www.xing.com  where you can seek out and contact companies and experts in whatever field of marketing or branding you fancy.

 

Most of the companies that come top of the list in the Google search are what I would call “old-school brand management consultants”. Typical of these is www.brandmeyer-markenberatung.de (which you can look at in English) which is full of process and promise to pinpoint precisely what profit each element of your marketing mix will bring. The idea of “brand core analysis- or whatever else they may be called (Sic.)” is heavily pooh-poohed as being fanciful, flakey and having no connection with commercial reality.

 

In a similar vein, but dry and intellectual rather than aggressive and dismissive is www.taikn.de . This is a website that I don’t think you can read in English but be thankful. A little better are www.esch-brand.com “The Brand Consultants” who appear to be a husband-and-wife combo with more academic qualifications than you could shake a stick at. They offer all the usual fare of Mission, Visions, Positionings and Architecture and make big of their academic connections to the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. However, despite their intellectual posturing, the site is loaded with marketing clichés of the “Win-Win” or “Whole is more than the sum of its parts” type.

 

Another category of Brand Consultancies is P.R, advertising, market research or media agencies who obviously want to add a bit of added value and substance to their offering and thus add a bit of Brand Consultancy to their menu. For example, www.k-mb.de, Kamps Markenberatung or www.brandaide.de . 

 

The Planning or Strategy part of an advertising or communications agency may also set themselves up as an independent Brand Consultancy, taking on their own clients as well as those of the main agency. A good example is Publicis-Sasserath www.markenfreunde.de who offer consultancy to clients outside the Publicis stable via their own tools and methods, such as the MarkenWesen. The question here, though, must always be: how independent are they really? There are other Brand Consultancy Agencies, who appear to be independent but on closer inspection, they are part of one of the giant communications networks. One example is www.economia.de , which offers trend-watching, innovation and new product development in addition to brand consultancy but appears to be part of BBDO. Another is www.21twentyone.com who promise to “make your brand an everyday hero” but who seem to be something to do with Carat.

 

The final category is Brand Consultancies who position themselves more on the innovation and creativity side of the spectrum but who are independent of major communications networks. These seem to be rather few and far between, but I have managed to find a couple of examples. First up is Dr Krüger & Equity, www.equity.de who formed as the first Strategic Planning Agency in Germany in 1995. They position themselves as “Creativity based on Information”. Another example is Diffferent, www.diffferent.de who also offer a combination of creative spirit and analytical expertise. Diffferent take on strategy for brands and communication, innovation and product and brand development.

 

Getting back to my differing experiences with the International and the German workshops, I suppose I can sum it up by saying that the International camp centres more around a way of thinking where a number of avenues are pursued in parallel, where we have to move out of comfort zones and where we must have faith that things will fall into place. The German experience was far more about following a linear, deductive process (“when we have got the answer to this, we can move on to the question for that”) with far more of a feeling of (false?) security that everything would be approached “step by step”. Maybe it is my UK training and upbringing, but I found the UK/International approach preferable in that it seems to lead to a number of possibilities rather than a definitive solution to one problem. 

 

While it is easy to dismiss the German way of doing Workshops as rigid and German Brand Consultancies as being inferior to ours, it did get me thinking about the why and wherefore and what we can do about it, especially if we are working with clients who are from a predominantly German culture. I think it is true to say that Germans are very reliant on structures and definitions and dislike ambiguity. This does not make their way of thinking inferior to ours, only different. After all, they have some pretty strong brands, too! I was reminded of a recent personal battle I have had here with the Finanzamt (or Tax Office) about my status. While I have argued that I am a professional freelancer, they want me registered as a “trade”. While I initially was more concerned about the tax implications, it became a matter of professional pride about what I do. My mistake was to call myself a Werbeberater (Advertising Consultant) instead of an Unternehmungsberater (Management Consultant). Now, these were the only two job descriptions in the Finanzamt’sapproved list (compiled in 1974, I have found out) that came anywhere near to Strategic Planner. Once I tried to argue that I was a Management Consultant with specialization in Brands and Marketing and not someone who advises the local nail studio on how the layout of their flyer should be, the Finanzamt demanded that I produced evidence that I had appropriate qualifications, that is, a Business Studies degree. To cut a long story short, I only achieved my desired status after much argumentation from my husband, who happens to be a German lawyer!

 

This little story sort of illustrates the problem about the fixed circle of ideas: in Germany, you can only set yourself up as a Brand Consultant if you have the relevant qualification. Although I do not have a German degree in Business Studies, I know plenty of people who have and the sort of stuff you learn there is not the stuff of creative innovation. And if you have studied something else, maybe rather more “academic”, there is a sense of “selling out” if you go into commerce. There is a distinct feeling of distaste in mixing the academic and the commercial. If you should go into qualitative research after studying Psychology, for example, you only do this on the grounds that everything is taken very earnestly and seriously. You will stress your qualifications on your business card and website and write lots of learned books about the state of the German psyche: “pop psychology” will have no place in your offer.

 

I think that there are two main points to this Extrawurst: firstly, that there is a real need for good Brand Innovation Consultancies here and secondly, that maybe we should have a good think about how we can really make use of people’s creative and thinking skills in a way that doesn’t alarm them too much when we’re working with predominantly German clients.

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There are a lot more players in the Brand Consultancy market in Germany these days. I guess that, as Account Planning in German ad agencies reached its critical mass a lot later than in the UK, it took a while for the idea and principles of Brand Strategy to take root. I came to Germany in 1996 to develop a fledgling Planning Department at Saatchi & Saatchi. At that time, people looked to marketing people in organisations such as P&G as the brand experts, rather than anyone within an ad agency. 

Many of the agencies I mentioned in 2007, particularly those that were offshoots of a communications agency network have bitten the dust. But most of the “pure” brand consultancies are still going strong. And although these have relished the rise of performance marketing with theit own Customer Journey models and growth flywheels, I’m pleased to see more acceptance of “fluffier” ideas about the nature of brands, too. In other words, that creating and growing brands is as much art as science. 

There’s a lot more choice on the market, from one-(wo)man bands to sizeable agencies, from the academic and learned to the design-thinky and innovative. And it’s good to see plenty of formal and informal networks of brand strategists as well the sharing of useful stuff on LinkedIn and beyond. 

Will the brand consultancies all have been gobbled up by AI by the end of the decade? I’m inclined to think not. In the end, you can have all the synthetic respondents and data you want, thousands of AI-generated concepts, research summaries at the touch of a button - but none of this will replace human insight.

   

BREXILE: The Light at the end of the Chunnel

More reanimated scribblings from me on the subject of belonging (or not). I wrote this in June 2017, reflecting back 21 years to June 1996 and that football match.

Even June 2017 seems a distant world now - “Germany - under the chancellorship of Angela Merkel - is being hailed as leader of the free world.” Well, there’s not much hailing of that sort going on at the moment ...

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THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE CHUNNEL

 

21 years ago, I sat down in a cellar in Mittelbuchen and wept. 

 

And then I got up and demanded a taxi to take me to the airport, to go home, back to England. This, of course, was absurd. I was plastered and was expected at 9 o’clock sharp in a Frankfurt West End office the next day. All I had were the clothes I stood up in and a large artwork board bearing a Magic-Markered cross of St George and pictures of Gascoigne, Shearer, Sheringham et al clipped out of the newspapers.

 

They were oblivious to my anguish, my German friends. Oblivious to my cries of how England had deserved to win, needed to win, for the good of the whole country. The tragic irony of it all. Beaten at Wembley – the hosts! It just wasn’t cricket. 30 years of hurt. Hurt to the bone, and what’s bred therein. It was like finding your new spouse cheating on your honeymoon.  

 

In March 1996, three months previously, I’d jumped the great ship Britannia as she sailed towards the island of Cool. My one-way ticket cut through the Heathrow fog like a landing light. Terminal 1 echoed with finality – no going back?

 

Who in their right mind would want to go there? We had Oasis, the Spice Girls, two World Wars and one Word Cup. They had bad haircuts and even worse music. I arrived at Frankfurt airport with the baggage of ignorant superiority and (relative) youthful arrogance. And a yuppie hangover.

 

Last night, 27^th June 2017, was the half-final of the Under 21s. England vs. Germany, and history seemed to be repeating itself, although none of the players on the pitch had even been born, that fateful night in Wembley. Maybe their mothers had wept, as I had, clutched their bumps, and dreamed of their little man growing up to be the saviour of English football, a young lion. Or maybe not.

 

Has nothing changed? Maybe not on the football pitch, but there’s a world beyond that. In that world, Germany seems to have achieved a feat even more remarkable than an English football team winning on penalties. Germany – under the chancellorship of Angela Merkel – is being hailed as the leader of the free world. This isn’t about economy, or defence but about values. Who can’t fail to be delighted seeing Angie’s scornful glances and wry smiles in the presence of Donald Trump? 

 

Meanwhile: Oh! England, my hamster heart.

 

The great ship Britannia sank unceremoniously amid illegal wars, lies, cheating, fraud, bad banks, dissent, phone hacking, unscrupulous journalists and I could go on but it’s just depressing. The country is a stirred-up wasps’ nest. Full of sound and fury and signifying I’m not sure what. People have forgotten how to be human.

 

Am I a patriot? I don’t really know. All I can say at the moment is that I love my country for what it was and what it could be, rather than what it is today.

 

So, what about the football? Did history repeat itself for me too? Well, this time, no. There were no tears on my part and no alcohol. Maybe the two were connected.

 

The only barriers between me and getting my German citizenship now are time and money. I’ve passed the tests, gathered all the documentation and all I need do now is make an appointment and hand over my Euros.

 

I read an article pertinent to my situation, the other day:

https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/countries-for-losers-countries-for-winners/

 

The idea is that there are countries that reward winners richly, but where the losers pay the price. Yes, guess which country is top, followed by – yup, got it! And this all works because many people naturally assume that they’ll win at some point.

 

Germany is on the other list of countries – those where voters graciously admit they are and will remain losers and where public transport, housing and schools are fit and decent for the majority of the population: the ‘losers.’

 

I do wonder if my wish to become German has something to do with my middle-aged but happy acceptance that I’m not one of life’s ultimate winners?

 

So, German citizenship, here I come. Watch this space.

 

But I would like to see those bastards once, just once, lose at football! 

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These days, I’m clutching both passports as I scurry back and forth across the Chunnel. 

And soon we’ll get a new government here. Let’s see.

Whatever happens, and politics aside, as far as I'm concerned, There’ll Always Be a Europe. 

I’m the bad guy

 

Last week, I was in a local school, doing an author visit. Over the years, I’ve developed this into a kind of show. You don’t want listen to me droning on, I say to the class, and instead recruit a few volunteers to act out scenes from the book. There are props - a ruby-encrusted cane, a “bomb” in a biscuit tin - and a few costume bits and pieces such as tiger ears. And, of course, the villain get-up of eye-patch and stick-on moustache. 

I get the feeling I have more volunteers for the mad dictator and his bodyguard, and the evil drummed-out-of-the-RAF ex-officer Featherstonehaugh than for the young heroes of the story. And maybe it’s no wonder, as - hand-on-heart - I have a lot more fun writing the bad guys. I’m sure that’s true for a lot of writers - just look at James Bond to Batman to Harry Potter.

This article for Contagious, by Tom Beckman of Weber Shandwick, references another article from Wired. Both note the trend to villainy in popular culture - very clear in the world of films (Wicked, Joker: Folie a Deux, Deadpool and Wolverine ...) and showing up on the fashion catwalk too. The author then moves to music and I’m afraid my attention started to wander at the mention of Charli XCX and “brat style.” I began to wonder whether Tom had been given some kind of trend-cliche bingo card at that point. Still, there does seem to be something in the air as far as being on the wrong side of the tracks goes ...

Brands are also having a go at showing their bad side. It must be a relief after all that po-faced, goodie-goodie stuff to do something like Nike did for the Paris Olympics - no it’s NOT about “taking part”!!!

And why not? Villains have more fun, as the school visit demonstrated. If your brand isn’t in some deadly serious, responsible category, maybe it’s more entertaining and memorable to try for world domination with a bit of tongue-in-cheek that holier-than-thou saving the planet.

And talking of that, here’s Javier Bardem (somehow inspired by Iggy Pop?) for Uber Eats. Is your brand good at being bad?

 

RETROWURST: Sports February 2007

 

Now, here’s something I’d all-but-forgotten-about. Eighteen years ago, hot on the heels of the 2006 Sommermärchen, Germany was whooping it up with handball fever...

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Germany are World Champions! Since Sunday evening, the streets have been wild once again with red, gold and black, with scenes not observed since back in July last year. The media went wild, Angela Merkel and other politicians were falling over themselves with praise, the Public Viewing arenas were bursting at the seams and the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin was blocked with a victorious, hooting, celebratory car convoy.

 

In case you missed it, the World Handball Championship has been hosted by Germany in Köln over the past three weeks and the championship came to its climax on Sunday afternoon with the final, which the German team won against Poland 29:24. This is the third time that the Germans have won: 1978 was the last time. 12m viewers watched the match which is reported as being a record.

 

While some of the hype and hysteria that surrounds the win here undoubtedly comes from the tournament’s proximity time wise to the football World Cup last year, with the inevitable comparisons being made, the handball team and the game itself have a number of elements which naturally lifted a victory in a somewhat niche sport to more of a media extravaganza. There was the spirit, development and character of the team, a likeable and largely photogenic bunch who steadily improved their performance over the duration of the tournament. They had humility (unusual in Germany) with no arrogant assumption that they would win at the out start. There was a cliff-hanger semi-final against France, where the French team led most of the way. And then there was the drama of the final itself, with the goalkeeper retiring with an excruciating injury at a critical point.

 

The trainer, Heiner Brand, was also critical not only to the success of the team, but to the way the media and the public became infected with handball-fever, too. Herr Brand is an instantly recognizable figure with his trademark walrus moustache and is known as “the face of handball” – no wonder as he was also a player in the World Champion team of 1978. Herr Brand’s almost iconic status was celebrated by the team as they donned stick-on droopy moustaches and what looked like Burger King crowns to receive their medals and the trophy. Although the total effect may have looked like the Village People do Panto to UK eyes, the team paid homage to their trainer and further proved that the Germans do have a sense of humour in one fell swoop!

 

Overall, however, it is the nature of the sport handball itself that is perhaps the biggest factor in making this victory a particular subject of media jubilation. Handball is a typical Volkssport, a sport “of the people”, a sport in itself something of an underdog. In the short tournament which lasted all of 17 days, there was very little of the glitz, glamour or spectacle associated with football or the Olympics, just good, honest sweat, energy and deserved celebration at the end. And although the sport was something of a minority interest (not anymore, it seems!) it is a classic spectator sport; fast-moving and entertaining. Handball is a sport that comes from local clubs in little villages, and, in that respect, it is a most democratic sport that requires no special equipment or perfect weather conditions, simply a hall, two goals and a ball. There has been a definite move in Germany away from the glitzy, the glamorous and the global to honesty, authenticity and Heimat, qualities of which handball has perfect possession.

 

It is hoped that the handball triumph may be the impulse that German sport needs to regenerate itself. While the popular professional sports that attract big sponsors and pay TV are thriving, the “grass roots” side is looking around desperately for the next generation. Sport in Germany is centred mostly on sports clubs, rather than schools. In any one village, you’ll find an impressive number of sports clubs, offering anything from gymnastics to handball to hockey. Many of these clubs have been around for well over 100 years and proudly display their year of founding in their name or crest (no logos, please!). There are very strict laws in Germany about how much money clubs are allowed to make and most of the money raised via subscriptions or events is ploughed straight into equipment and trainer’s salaries. Children tend to follow their parents into clubs but with increasing mobility and more working women, membership amongst the younger generation is tailing off. 

 

Not just the clubs, but the sports shops and sports article industry will be looking to the handball triumph for an upturn in their fortunes. This branch is facing a rather grim year: there has been a VAT hike from 16% to 19% and there is no football World championship to generate sales. On top of that, the extraordinarily mild winter has meant that sales of ski and other winter sports clothing and equipment have fallen drastically. It is estimated, for example, that the ski manufacturers will only sell 3.8m to 4m pairs this season, some 10-15% less as last year.

 

But maybe there is a ray of hope: already, since last Sunday, handball tricots have been flooding the sports stores. If there is no snow on your ski holiday, perhaps you can at least get a few friends together and have a quick game of handball in the village hall.

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... and, then? Well, 2014 happened with the football, but since then, there hasn't been that much cause for whooping. The biggest success of Euro 2024 was probably the pink away shirt. 

But I try to remain optimistic - I see plenty of evidence for sports enthusiasm on the local and regional level, despite a lot of doom and gloom hand-wringing. Sport sponsorship is a brilliant opportunity for local and regional brands to play a part in the local community and bring people together. Despite the obsession with putting people in boxes, I remind myself that love for a particular football team can override differences in political views.

On the global stage, I was talking with friends last week about how Germany could well use something like the Olympics to get the sport dynamo back up to speed. We’ve probably missed the boat on 2036, and I’m not convinced that the centenary of 2036 is a good look for Germany however it’s packaged. (There was a proposal for a joint hosting with Israel, but I really can’t see that one working out well, sadly). 

But how about 2040, which would be 50 years after the reunification? My idea would be an emphasis on the former East German cities outside Berlin - Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz. Could be a hat-trick for solving a few of Germany’s problems?

Alperol

It’s 15 years since I first marvelled about Aperol in these pages, and I hate to think how much of the stuff I’ve knocked back in that time. Funny that I commented in the link that Martini and Cinzano seemed to win the ubiquitous prize - it’s quite the opposite these days.

Of course, plenty of other contenders want a slurp of the Aperol glass (they’re usually big enough, those glasses) - and I blogged about a Swedish rival here. 

But while Andalö at least made some attempt at a backstory, my latest discovery doesn’t even pretend.

And maybe that’s refreshing.

It was waiting to happen, really. The South Tyrol “symbiosis of contrasts” (‘scuse my BS) in an “Aperitivo Alpino” - with citrus fruits plus Alpine herbs, fruity and bitter, it’s the taste of South Tyrol - Alpitz.

While there’s no invented backstory, the brand comes from a long-established distillery in South Tyrol, the pack design with its cheerful primary colours is very fetching - and it tastes pretty good, spritzed up with a bit of Prosecco and sparkling water. 

Now, I’m wondering how long it'll take some bright marketing spark to rediscover Cynar?

BREXILE: A tale of two ferries

 

I stuck my head in the sand as far as my looming Brexile project goes over Christmas and New Year. Well, that’s not quite true. There wasn’t much sand about, and instead of an exotic holiday on a warm sandy beach, I decided to see in a New Year in my Old Home and party like it’s 1999. Turned out it was more like 1979, even better, but that’s another story.

Choosing ferries was important as it would set the tone for what’s going to be a frequent commute this year. I note that, mid-Covid, I was bright and breezy and optimistic about the future of travel. 

If only.

That was before P&O fell in a lamentable mess out of my consideration set (I do actually have one of these fabled constructs for ferries) as a result of their shocking treatment of staff. But maybe because it was near Christmas and I was feeling peace-and-goodwill-to-all-ferry-operators, I decided to give them another chance.

The pre-sailing email didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but it was too late to change things by that point.

I can’t abide the expression “grab” - which P&O (or their AI copywriter) see fit to use every other sentence. I would have hoped that Mr Trump’s use of the word in connection with female anatomy might have put writers off using it. Regrettably not.

It was even worse than feared - I don’t like getting all hoity-toity-Karen and threatening with eternal damnation on Trip Advisor, but sometimes you just have to vent forth. I regurgitated much of the review above when P&O sent me one of their badly-constructed surveys.

Just when I thought it was all over, I got this email. If you can make any sense of it, well done you:

A glutton for punishment, I clicked in an idle fashion into their website and wasn’t too surprised to find one of Germany’s most famous landmarks has moved a few hundred km north west to Frankfurt. Ho hum.

What do I take out of all this about the brand P&O?

Easy. They don’t give a seagull’s shit about customers, service or accuracy.

The tale does have a happy end as I’d booked the return ferry with DFDS.

Now, that’s what I call a ferry service!

RETROWURST: Crisps & Snacks January 2007

This is a good one for January, where I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling a touch bloated and in need of some serious exercise in the fresh air. In the UK, I was addicted to crisps from an early age, and used to sneak off to spend my dinner money on crunchy snacks instead of Spam fritters. Probably healthier, actually.

One piece of evidence for my Teutonisation is that I really don’t eat so many crisps now. Certainly not the kgs mentioned in this Extrawurst from January 2007. In fact, I’m beginnng to develop a distaste for the nibbles/picky bits/grab bags/finger food/grazing business, although that could be because the words are so ghastly. 

Here’s the state of play in the world of crisps and snacks eighteen years ago ...

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Did you know that the Brits eat, on average, more than five times as many potato crisps per year as the Germans? The UK leads potato crisp consumption in Europe with an amazing 3 ½ kg per head per year, while Germans consume a mere 700g per head per year, one of the lowest consumption levels in Europe. In fact, only the Italians are less enthusiastic about crisps, with a consumption level of 600g per head per year.

 

Pondering on the reasons for the difference, I came up with the following factors. First of all, we should look at market development and history. Crisps have simply not been around for very long in Germany, relatively speaking. There is quite an interesting story behind their introduction to Germany which goes that a German show jumper, Irmgard von Opel, was on holiday in the U.S with her husband Heinrich and son Carlo when she discovered potato chips and decided that they would sell well in her home country. In 1962, the family set up the first production of Chio Chips, the brand name coming from the initials of the first names of the family. In 1968, another brand, Chipsfrisch, which would become the brand leader, was launched.

 

If one looks at the market for crisps here, it is relatively underdeveloped in terms of varieties, product forms, pack sizes and distribution outlets. Typically, crisps come in a large (175 g) pack size and the range of flavours is limited. The biggest seller is Ungarisch, which is a sort of Paprika flavour, followed by plain salted. Other flavours such as Pepperoni or Chinese are available, or even our beloved Salt & Vinegar, but these are reported to be successful only in cosmopolitan, city areas.

 

I have mentioned that distribution is more limited here in Germany. Crisps are not nearly as ubiquitous here as in the UK, where they can be found in school lunchboxes through to pubs. Neither of these places would harbour crisps in Germany, for reasons I’ll come on to! Instead, crisps are confined to the supermarket and perhaps the petrol station. Related to the ubiquity of crisps in terms of where you can buy them, habits are very different in terms of where and when you eat crisps. Crisps are really only eaten in the evening, in front of the TV. There is some use at parties but not to the extent seen at the UK and crisps tend to be consumed more in private at-home situations.

 

A lot of this has to do with a certain difference in food culture. In Germany, there is far less of the “snacks and nibbles” mentality than one gets in the UK. A party of any kind without proper food supplied by the host is frowned on and the idea of any kind of “nibbles” before a dinner party would be thought of as disrespectful to the food that is to come. One could say that there is a far less “playful” attitude to food, which is where crisps miss out. Although German food can tend toward the heavy and stodgy, there is an innate belief in proper, natural, unprocessed food. In this sense, although there is no Jamie Oliver watching over children’s lunchbox content, few German mothers would dream of putting anything other than a cheese or meat sandwich and fruit in their child’s lunch box. And anyway, the huge packets of crisps here simply aren’t designed for little hands.

 

But before you all start thinking that the weird Germans are totally missing out on the idea of something salty and crunchy to go with their Bier, we must remember the Salzstange or Brezel. Perhaps one of the reasons that crisps didn’t catch on was that their place was already occupied by pretzels. If a German bar offers any savoury snacks at all, it is likely that they will be little salty sticks. And pretzels often pop up at children’s parties and even in lunchboxes, albeit with some of the over-zealous Muttis scraping the salt off first. Pretzels are even thought to have medicinal properties, with a diet of Coca-Cola and Salzstangen considered a worthy alternative to Imodium to combat “the runs”.

 

In terms of the brand landscape for savoury snacks in total, the three main players are the leader, Intersnack, who own the Funny-Frisch (www.funny-frisch.de ) and Chio (www.chio.de ) brands, Lorenz Bahlsen Snack World (kings of pretzels and nuts) and Stöver who produce a lot of Own Label. Growth in the “stacked” crisp area is also building Pringles into a major brand. 

 

The only other product forms of real note in the market are Tortilla Chips and dips and Erdnuss Flips or peanut puffs. Minor products include onion rings, “Hula Hoops”, “Chiplets”, shaped savoury biscuits and ribbed crisps.

 

There is relatively little innovation in the market, but what innovation there is focuses on the lower fat/ natural area, for example, “Naturals” from Lorenz. But I think the door is wide open for more innovation in the gourmet area and the health/well-being area for adults and children. However, I think pickled onion flavour Monster Munch probably wouldn’t be a winner.

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Oddly, this is a situation that hasn’t changed hugely. There’s been an increase in snack and crisp consumption here, up to around 1.5 kg pro annum, although I couldn’t find any good, reliable recent figures. On the other hand, the Brits are munching more than ever before, at about 4.5 kg per munchy mouth - the results of which are all too apparent in any shopping centre.

Pringles and its imitators has become quite a staple here and there have been developments in Kettle Crisps and snacks made from chickpeas and other vegetables. A few weird new flavours have cropped up (Chilli Cheese Fries - the thought makes me quite queasy).

But it’s still big bags and, as far as I know, not much sneaking its way into the children’s lunchboxes.