Читать книгу Chocolate Busters: The Easy Way to Kick It! - Jason Vale, Jason Vale - Страница 18

There is, however, one human drive which is perhaps stronger than any other – SEX! Whether it’s politically correct or not to say so, the fact remains that sex sells, it always has done and always will. Now there’s a fine line between sex and love, but unlike Milk Tray, Rolo or Terry’s All Gold, Cadbury’s Flake cannot fool us into thinking it’s all about love. No, if we put our honest heads on for a second, Flake equals sex, or DIY sex if we’re really getting to the nitty-gritty. One of the first ever ads to feature Flake ran the advertising slogan, ‘By Yourself? Enjoy Yourself – and that, was in the 1950s! Yes, it’s all about coming home, running a bath, getting naked and blocking out the stresses of the world by simulating oral sex with a chocolate bar. This isn’t my imagination either; it was more than a little deliberate. Thomas Krygier, one of the advertising gurus in charge of the Flake ad campaign, says they deliberately looked for innocent-looking women to front their ads. In his words, ‘You wouldn’t expect her to give a blow job!’ The idea, of course, was to illustrate that even innocent-looking people can be naughty and that chocolate had always been seen as ‘naughty but nice’. This idea perhaps reached its climax when the soul singer Joss Stone became the first famous person ever to advertise Flake.

The emotional hook is what they want – what they need – and it is what keeps them turning over billions. In business terms, they want what is known as ‘the lifetime value of a customer’. That’s why they can spend millions advertising something which costs about 30p. It’s the repetition they want and what better way to guarantee that than the emotional hook. This is why pop bands, which already have an emotional hook with their huge child fan base, are paid millions of pounds by companies such as Cadbury. The priceless emotional hook has already been established. What’s more, the children also trust the band, so if the pop group eats or drinks it, the children believe it must not only be cool but also good. This is why getting Harry Potter signed up was such an incredible coup for our friends at Mars and Coca-Cola. Harry Potter is a modern day phenomenon and if they can get Harry to eat a Mars and drink a Coke … that really would be magic!

As I’m sure you’re starting to realize, the chocolate industry will use just about any emotion, any situation to give the impression that their particular chocolate will help in some way. They are trying, very successfully, to build a relationship between you and the product. The bond ends up being so great that even a simple name change, let alone giving it up, can cause people to get a little touchy.

‘It’s a Marathon, for Christ’s Sake!’

See what I mean? Uniformed branding is extremely important to the big players in the chocolate world, and it means they can achieve global sponsorship and brand familiarity worldwide. This was the problem Mars had sponsoring in the 1984 Olympics, they quickly realized they didn’t have uniformity. It was then they set out to make sure that all chocolate bars in the US would be instantly recognizable across the globe. Hence Marathon becoming Snickers, Treets becoming M&Ms, etc. Once they have uniformity they know their job will be made much, much easier in the future.

The loyalty to brands is so strong that instead of bringing out brand-new chocolate bars, which can involve incredible risk, years from idea to birth, and millions in cash building a new relationship, they simply add different ingredients and produce a different version of an already named brand. This is why we get many different versions of M&Ms and products such as Milky Way Dark and Snow Flake.

Generating a following and brand loyalty is something the chocolate industry seemingly will go to any lengths to achieve. Not long after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, Mars used huge amounts of emotional advertising to achieve what the press called ‘the Snickerization of Russia’. Months prior to introducing the Russians to their first ‘hit’ of this legal drug food, they carefully manipulated their minds, not just by erecting massive billboards showing their glossy packaged products, but also dangling the emotional hook by throwing a Christmas party for disadvantaged children – sounds generous, until you understand the motives behind the move. The party included a rock party for 4,000 teens, which attracted large TV coverage. TV coverage in a country with only one or two channels does nothing other than link the Mars brand to ‘party mood’ and generosity. On top of this they ran an advertising campaign which used the theme:

‘All the World Loves M&Ms’

A statement which is untrue, but it was still allowed to be used. The combination of the advertising and ‘generosity’ meant that the Russians had been mentally teased on a massive scale. So much so that on 4 January 1990, a quarter of a mile of Russians, pockets stuffed with roubles, police at the ready, queued to get their first taste of the West. Mars sold more than 20 tons of chocolate in just two days, and this was with a restriction on how much each person could buy! In a very short space of time Mars had achieved its objectives – to create an emotional hook to the brand before supplying them with the chemical ‘hit’.

However, the chocolate advertising boys and girls don’t always get it right when dabbling in politics to help sell their wares. The not-so-forward-thinking Cadbury marketing people in India thought they would try to sell more chocolate by playing on the biggest issue facing the world’s largest democracy – Kashmir. This is an issue which continues to threaten to plunge India and its neighbour, Pakistan, into nuclear war. Newspaper advertisements for the Temptations range of chocolate depicted a map of Kashmir alongside the riddle: ‘I’m good. I’m tempting. I’m too good to share. What am I? Cadbury’s Temptations or Kashmir?’ As soon as it came out, as you can well imagine, waste matter hit the fan and the company were forced to apologize. Mr Vinod Tawde, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party said, ‘Why use an emotive issue like Kashmir to promote products?’ The answer is very clear – because it works … usually! They want to stir up emotions – that’s the whole point. They want people to take notice. Unfortunately for them this one backfired, but they’re usually spot on.