Hostess Potato Chips - Hostess No More

Hostess No More

With the brand popularity falling, in 1996 it was decided to re-brand the product as Lay's. This presented no small amount of difficulty; the product was already on sale in Canada via a third party, and was considered even "lower end" than Hostess. An aggressive advertising campaign by BBDO Canada featuring famous hockey players such as Mark Messier and Eric Lindros launched the "new" brand in 1997, and within eighteen months Lay's was selling twice as much product as it had been with the Hostess name. Hostess has largely disappeared, and recently the company dropped "Hostess" from its name, becoming Frito Lay Canada.

In order to maintain its trademark protection on the Hostess brand, Frito Lay continues to sell Hostess-branded chips in some lower-end grocery stores, such as Food Basics, FreshCo and Price Chopper, albeit limited to its early 1990s lineup of flavours.

Hostess is so undervalued by parent corporation PepsiCo Canada, that it does not merit a mention on the website snack brands list.