Why is this “Yorkie” candy bar from Nestle (Great Britain) not for girls?
“All because the lady loves… Milk Tray”, that’s why. Leading UK chocolatier Cadbury had been successfully branding chocolate both for women and by using women in its ads to promote chocolate’s sensual side.
One of Cadbury’s most popular TV spots featured a suave cat burglar scaling a building, fighting off danger, using 007- like gadgets etc, all in an effort to leave a box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray chocolates on a sleeping woman’s night table. The spots ended with the tagline, “And all because the lady loves Milk Tray”
Nestle countered with the “It’s not for girls” campaign, running spots of woman disguised as men in desperate attempts to buy a Yorkie. Of course the wily male candy clerk would trip them up, resulting in no sale. The Yorkie spots would end with a swarthy construction worker type manhandling a Yorkie bar. Sort of a Brit version of Toffeefay’s old “Toffeefay, it’s too good for kids” campaign.
2 responses so far ↓
1 nic mitham // Jul 26, 2006 at 1:53 pm
This is a very clever and subtle campaign.
The beauty of the ‘Not for Girls’ campaign is that it reinforces the attributes of the bar – it’s big, chunky – you almost have to fight it to eat it, it’s a masculine eating experience.
Secondly, Yorkies are typically sold at historically male-based venues such as football (soccer) matches, so the campaign is aiming fairly and squarely at the target market.
This is a campaign that is yelling the essence of the product.
2 Ian D // Jul 31, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Think you’re off the mark with the reference to Milk Tray. Those adverts hadn’t been shown for ten years. More about the championing of ‘laddishness’ in the UK and a backlash to the caring, sharing, quiche-eaters of the 90s.
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