Walkers is in trouble. It really needs to get its brand identity sorted out. It currently has only Playful as a Brand Essence to speak of and consumers have a lot of choice. This would be fine in itself but the prize doesn’t match the Brand Essence. It includes the word “Joy” in its domain name, which is never a good sign. To display “Joy” you have to show it and not tell it. Coca-Cola already owns that brand territory.

To enter, go to www.joy-pepsico.eu/en-gb/promotions/walkers/freelunch, which is a ridiculously long URL: I’m not a fan of QR codes but it’s justifiable in this troublesome case. And why are they using an eu. domain name for the UK?

Brand failure starts with not getting the simple things right. For example, the promotion website has the Title of “Freelunch”, which any spell-checker can tell you is bad grammar and is awful for SEO. And don’t get me started on “Login” instead of “Log in” or the split infinitive of “Please tick the box below to not miss any news”, which also misses out on the plural of “box” because there are two boxes. I’d expect this from a local hairdresser – not from a brand like Pepsico. There are other grammar and User Experience failures too but they’re painful to mention. The developers are clearly writing the copy and nobody is checking it.

In the end, I had to give up trying to enter the promotion.