During the late 1990s the Burger Rings brand went through a brand overhaul, coinciding with the acquisition of The Smith's Snackfood Company by Lays. During the brand overhaul the appearance of the packet was changed to a more modernised look with bolder and sharper letters in the logo, adopting its past logo.
Ingredients
Burger Rings are made out of a combination of corn and rice. A Smith's Chips representative confirmed Burger Rings are suitable for vegans.[3]
A Bacon Flavour variant was offered in Australia, briefly.
Marketing
A memorable Star Wars-themed advertisement for the product was aired on Australian television in the early 1980s. It featured a faux Luke Skywalker character on Tatooine. After exiting his Landspeeder, he is confronted by a large group of Jawas who ask for his Burger Rings. He begrudgingly shares them only to be left with a single Burger Ring. A Jawa swiftly grabs that last one and the ad ends.
A radio ad campaign in the 1980s joked that Burger Rings were possibly made of rubber tyres concluding with the slogan "they taste good but!".
A 1989 ad aired on Australian television depicting a school chemistry experiment resulting in the creation of a single Burger Ring snack. The student who performed the experiment consumes the snack and seems to gain superpowers, developing jagged hair and a crazed look as the now-fluorescent Burger Ring bounces inside the boy's ribcage, made visible by a radiographic effect akin to X-ray imaging. This later turns out to be a daydream of the boy who has fallen asleep in a chemistry class, and continues to mix his chemicals in a sleepy haze.[5]
A 1992 ad featured a man at a bus stop who attempts to steal one of the snacks from another man's packet, only having it growl like a dog and attack his arm, making him run away past a sign that says "WARNING - BURGER RINGS BITE". The owner then shares the packet with a woman on his other side.[6]
In popular culture
In 2014, a contestant on Australian quiz show Millionaire Hot Seat failed to identify "Burger ring" as the "gag answer" to the $100 question, "Which of these is not a piece of jewellery commonly worn to symbolise a relationship between two people?".[7] The contestant instead incorrectly locked in "Anniversary ring".[7] The contestant was invited back onto the set at the end of the program where host Eddie McGuire presented her with a packet of Burger Rings as a consolation prize.[8]
Burger Rings are available in New Zealand under the same name, except distributed by Bluebird Foods. The New Zealand variant has a different packaging design and a similar slogan: "Full on burger flavour". They are available in 30g and 120g bags, and in 108g 6-pack multipacks.
