Flipz Pretzels (History, Flavors & Commercials)

If you love pretzels, you probably like candied pretzels even more. If you have never tried chocolate-covered pretzels, you will want to be sure that you try Flipz Pretzels. This is more like a dessert than a snack, and the sweet and salty nature of these treats makes them very popular with many people. There are various flavors of this snack as well, which makes it easy to find the right blend of tastes for your snacking enjoyment.

Flipz has also been associated with lots of really fun commercials, which have made it easy to identify this brand among others that are similar. Adding snack mixes and lots of holiday-style flavors to the lineup has helped Flipz to remain relevant and popular over the years through all kinds of snacking preference changes within the industry.

History

Flipz is a relatively new product in the Nestle lineup. The product landed on shelves for the first time in 1997. The first version of the product was the milk chocolate-covered pretzel, but later there would be many other flavors and snack mixes added to the product’s offerings. 

Flipz were originally made with Rold Gold pretzels, which were later purchased by DeMet’s Candy Company. DeMet’s now makes their own version of the Flipz product with their pretzels, but they are no longer the pretzels that are included in the Flipz products.

Flipz was always marketed with an eye toward how easy it was so share with other people. There was a clear social snacking connection that was made in many of the ads and they were often favored by people throwing parties to replace boring bar mix or other snack mixes. This was a great niche for the brand to focus on, and they were able to establish a place for the sweet snack mix a bit ahead of its time. Sweet snack mixes are much more common these days than they were in the 90s, but at the time that Flipz hit the market, consumers probably needed a little push to figure out what the snack was all about.

Hershey Co did not join the sweet snack mix market until 2016, and there were few competitors in this space for a long time. Flipz was able to make itself popular and well-known for its sweet and salty nature, and the brand has continued to be valued for its flavor profile ever since.

Flipz executives have stated that they are always looking at ways to better market products that blur the line between snack items and candy in the way that Flipz does. There are competitors on the market, but they are more clearly associated with chips and popcorn overall. This means that the few products that offer what is mostly a candy-eating experience are harder to sell to consumers overall.

Some of the original ads used the tagline, “What’s your excuse?”, making it clear that this was a guilty-snacking experience that you should make sure to sign up for. The snack was also linked with Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? show while it was still on the air.

In the UK, the product was marketed by a different company, United Biscuits. There are some differences in the flavor offerings in the UK, and the presentation in ads was slightly different as well. Sweet and salty snacks were always a bit more familiar to those living in the UK, so there was no need to explain to consumers why they would like this kind of treat.

By the late 90s, Flipz was leaning into some of the zanier advertising that was common at the time, complete with empty rooms with brightly colored walls, actors in loudly-colored clothes, and silly taglines that were intended to change the narrative of the product. One of the more common taglines that was used by Flipz during the later 90s was, “You’ll like them, but you won’t know why”. This kind of silly dare to make people try the product out were successful, and there was a real sense of silly whimsy about the ads that appealed to people of various ages.

More recent advertising has indicated that you are still allowed to love Flipz, even if you have to give up your “cool” to want to do it. These are ads that are targeted quite clearly at people who are having kids and want to still be their old cool selves while also being parents.

Flipz also usually comes out with a Christmas ad or two that indicate that Flipz are like an advent calendar or to show that they come in seasonal varieties as well. These are probably the ads that have made most people aware of this product over the years since holiday marketing is often sandwiched in between segments of holiday movies, Hallmark productions, and other seasonal offerings.

Flipz executives have also credited their packaging with the continued success of the product, stating that the bright teal-blue and shiny bags are eye-catching and that they make sure that the product stands out, “loud and proud”. There might be a growing connection between this kind of bright and colorful packaging and sweet and salty snacks since other brands have begun to make this same shift with regard to packaging and brand livery. 

Flipz are really the original products that fit into the sweet and salty snack category, and if you have never tried any products that fit this mold, you should start with Flipz. There are few products in this space that are so committed to sweet and candy-like flavors balanced by just a little bit of salty snacking. If you are a bigger fan of candy bars than salty snacks, this is probably going to be your new favorite treat.

Flipz Competitors

There are a few key competitors in the Flipz marketing space. Pirate Booty offers a popcorn-focused snack mix that includes chocolate-covered pretzels, and there are a few Hershey’s products that are made with the same snack mixing ideas in mind. Hershey’s makes a “Popped Snack Mix” lineup that includes some classic candies like Hershey’s bar bits, Reese’s peanut butter cups, and Hershey Cookies N Crème bits. There are also some snacking mix products that Hershey’s sells that include peanuts with these other snacking mixes.

While these are products that are clearly made to chase the success of Flipz, they are not the same product and offer a very different snacking experience. Flipz has always been associated, most of all, with the pretzels dipped in chocolate that made them well-known, so you will get far more pretzels in your Flipz mix than you will enjoy from these other products. This is often the key difference between sweet snacking mixes in this space, and Flipz has never forgotten that people love their products because they love pretzels that are made to be sweet.

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Ingredients

From the HEB entry for the basic milk chocolate version of Flipz:

• Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate [Vitamin B1]
• Riboflavin, Folic Acid)
• Sugar
• Cocoa Butter
• Unsweetened Chocolate
• Skim Milk Powder
• Butter Oil (Milk)
• Lactose
• Soy Lecithin (Emulsifier)
• Salt
• Corn Syrup
• Yeast
• Malted Barley Flour
• Artificial Flavor
• Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate)

This product contains milk, wheat, and soy as allergy warnings. The brand also states that you will need to store them in a cool and dry place to prevent melting the chocolate and ruining your snack mix experience. 

Nutrition

Serving Size:	Per 25g	% Daily Value*
Amount Per Serving
Calories	119
Calories from Fat	41
Total Fat	4.5g	7%
Saturated Fat	2.7g	14%
Sodium	120mg	5%
Total Carbohydrates	17g	6%
Dietary Fiber	0.6g	2%
Sugars	9.3g
Protein	2.2g
Iron		0%

• Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000-calorie diet.

Flavors

Flipz has a wide array of flavors that are always on shelves, but they also make some limited flavors that have come and gone over the years or that are related to holiday sales. These limited-time flavors are sometimes offered online, even if they are not sold in your local stores.

Regular flavors:

• Milk Chocolate
• Dark Chocolate
• White Fudge
• Birthday Cake
• Caramel Sea Salt
• Strawberry Cheesecake
• Peanut Butter
• Cookies and Cream
• Gingerbread

Limited Flavors or Holiday Flavors:

• Chocolate Mint
• S’mores
• Candy Cane
• Strawberry
• Unicornz “Purple Fudge Covered Pretzels Drizzled with Magic”
• Double Dipped Peanut Butter and Chocolate
• Pumpkin Spice Covered Pretzels

There are also various “Flipz Mix” products on offer around the country. These are usually focused on a kind of chocolate coating, and usually, all include plain pretzel squares, as well as popcorn and candy pieces that are bits like M&Ms. White Fudge, Caramel Sea Salt, and Milk Chocolate, are the current flavors for the snack mixes, but there are various seasonal offerings that can sometimes be produced in Snack Mix form as well.

Pictures

Commercials

A classic late 90s spot about liking Flipz but having no idea why:

A more recent ad that was used to promote the Flipz jacket that could be won in theaters:

A Christmas-themed Flipz ad: