As someone who once ate 14 packs of Walkers crisps for a (winning) bet, and grew up in their Leicestershire heartland at a time when you could barely find them outside the county (they were nearly national brand leader, even then, and local cash-&-carry managers used to hoot with resignation whenever their HQs sent them unsaleable allocations of Smiths or Golden Wonder), I follow their fortunes with a keen nose. Things sadly took a turn for the worse when they replaced the tasty cooking fat with that sunseed stuff, so it was with mouth-watering anticipation that I checked out their new range of 'Do Me a Flavours.' From a promotional point of view - what a great idea - it's hard to envisage a much more holistic link between NPD and promotional activity - well done Walkers, and - if they get some sales figures that match up to the concept, then I can see a few ISP awards heading their way. Sales figures... that could be the challenge. Not trusting myself as a self-appointed one-man consumer panel, I enlisted the rest of the McGreedy clan for a product test (and, boy, can they eat crisps). The new lines provoked muted interest, with squirrel-flavour barely raising a questioning eyebrow (had it have been cabbage, I could have predicted a different reaction). However, the biggest surprise to me was that, at the end of the test, all of the bowls still contained crisps. And I couldn't finish them either. Since then I've been keeping an eye on the cupboard stocks and - yes you guessed it - the remaining new packs are all still sitting there, while bog standard Cheese & Onion and Salt & Vinegar have been burgled in time-honoured fashion. I don't quite know how Walkers did choose their new varieties for the final vote, but when it comes to the crunch in my experience it's always very risky to rely on the consumer. What a shame it will be if - when the crumbs have all settled - there are no new variants that can hold their own against the old flavourites.