Tazos - TRC Nostalgia

Anyone who grew up in the 90s, in all likelihood, will remember Tazos that came as freebies with a packet of chips. These small round discs were making kids gravitate day after day, week after week, month after month, to the neighbourhood grocer, school canteen and roadside vendor to buy the infamous packet of chips. In playgrounds, street corners, public parks, and even classrooms, tazos were being flown, stacked, whacked, won, bought, exchanged and traded. Tazos were an obsession, an addiction that swept like a tidal wave in the 90s. 

Tazos were the official currency for kids of India. Sometimes a packet would have one tazo. Other times, two! The promotion worked wonders for Frito-Lay’s, Cheetos and Uncle Chips resulting in a 50% growth in sales and within 4 months of its launch, close to 20 million tazos were floating in the market, according to a report by economic times. There were instances where some shopkeepers would rip their packets & sell just the tazo for much higher rates. 

The pull of the tazos was such that desperate kids weren’t averse to nicking the odd Rs 10 from their parents while still others rely on good old fashioned pester power. Further, there were enough cases where a kid bought a packet & threw the wafers away & keeping just the tazo, after all - how many chips can a pre-adult homo sapiens consume? 

Frito Lay knew that just selling a packet of chips in the market would not sustain them for the long term, it had to seep into the layers of indulgence occasions and bonds that a pack of chips can be a part of Tazos of the various franchise including Looney Tunes, Pokemon and Batman & coupled with the cartoons on TV it unquestionably hit the consciousness.

Read more: Fusen Gum - TRC Nostalgia