Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - The Willy Wonka Secret: Candy Bar Advertising

Episode Date: January 14, 2023

This week, we look at candy bar advertising. Millions are spent marketing candy bars every year. We’ll talk about how the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was owned by a candy company. And we’ll reveal whether it really was Phil Collins inside that gorilla costume in that famous Cadbury Dairy Milk commercial. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. This is an apostrophe podcast production. You're so king in it. Your teeth look whiter than noon, noon, noon You're not you when you're hungry You're a good half with all things You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. When writer Roald Dahl was a young schoolboy in England,

he lived near a Cadbury chocolate factory. Every once in a while, Cadbury would come up with a new chocolate concoction and give out free samples to the kids to see if they liked them. That memory stayed with Dahl, and years later, in 1964, he published a book titled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Seven years later, that book was adapted into a movie. It was titled Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So, why was the title changed?

Well, that's a very interesting question. If you've ever watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, you may have missed this line in the opening credits. In small type, it says the movie's copyright is held by Wolper Pictures Ltd. and the Quaker Oats Company. Now, why would a food company own the copyright to a Hollywood movie? Well, it all started with the director's 11

year old daughter. She had read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and loved it, and asked her daddy to make a movie out of it. The director wasn't sure, so he passed the idea by producer David Wolper.

Timing is everything. At that moment, Wolper was doing a project for Quaker Oats, and he knew Quaker wanted to get into the candy business. So Wolper told Quaker Oats it should fund the movie. The plot revolved around Wonka candy bars, and since the film would run in theaters across the country, Quaker could launch their candy bars at the same time. Plus, the company would earn part of the movie's profits. Quaker Oats liked the concept and put up the full $3 million production But the company had one stipulation.

Quaker insisted the title be changed. It wanted to start manufacturing Willy Wonka-branded candies and candy bars. So they wanted the title changed from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Paramount Studios and Walper agreed to the change. Roald Dahl wasn't happy. Gene Wilder was cast as Willy Wonka. Dahl had wanted Spike Milligan. It also became a musical, which Dahl also disliked. One of the main songs in the movie was The Candyman.

Singer Sammy Davis Jr. was down on his luck in the early 70s, needed some money, and his manager convinced him to cover The Candyman. Sammy hated the song, banged off two quick takes and said, This record is going straight into the toilet, not just around the rim, but into the bowl, and it may just pull my whole career down with it. It would turn out to be his only number one hit. Meanwhile, Quaker Oats was having problems with its Willy Wonka candy bars. As it turned out, Quaker couldn't get the recipe right for its Willy Wonka candy bars. As it turned out,

Quaker couldn't get the recipe right for its Willy Wonka candy. It kept melting, even in cool temperatures. They eventually pulled the candy from the shelves. Therefore, their promotional investment

in the movie was all for nothing. The movie got some good reviews, but did poorly at the box office, so Quaker's dreams of big profits also evaporated. The film languished unseen for six years. When the rights lapsed in 1977, Paramount declined to renew. Quaker Oats had no use for the movie either and unloaded the rights to Warner Brothers

for $500,000. But the 1980s saw the rise of the VCR and video rentals of Willy Wonka suddenly flew out of blockbuster stores. The movie that

Roald Dahl disowned, the movie that didn't make a profit, the movie that Paramount didn't want and Qu that didn't make a profit, the movie that Paramount didn't want and Quaker didn't need, ended up becoming a cult classic. Candy bars have a classic place in the world of marketing, too. It's a huge category where hundreds of millions of marketing dollars are spent every year. It may surprise you to know your favorite candy bar is almost a century old.

And the candy bar category is also a very creative advertising category. From gorillas to violins to sex, candy bar commercials come in a lot of surprising flavors. You're under the influence. I often talk about industries that spend the most money on advertising, like the automotive sector and the insurance business. But there's another big spender, the candy bar industry. To begin with, most of your favorite bars have been around for a century. And while you may not give much thought to candy bars,

here are some interesting stats. Canadian households spend close to $90 on candy bars every year. Quebec spends the least, Newfoundland and Labrador the most. Total sales of chocolate-related products in Canada is around $4.6 billion. The average American eats three bars per week. But it's the Swiss who eat the most chocolate, averaging 25 pounds per person per year. The most popular time of day to eat chocolate is in the evening. Can you guess the biggest day for chocolate sales? November 1st, the day after Halloween, when candy is heavily discounted. The global chocolate industry is worth 127.9 billion US dollars. It is estimated to grow to 265 billion by 2028. You can see why there is so much marketing.

Because the growth is expected to more than double. There have been many terrific candy bar advertising campaigns over the years. It's one of those products that invites a lot of creativity. Probably the best candy bar advertising I've seen in quite some time is the Snickers You're Not You When You're Hungry campaign. I told a bit of the backstory a few years ago, but I went to hear the Snickers worldwide marketing director talk about the campaign at a marketing event called the Gathering Summit in Banff, Alberta. Here's what he had to say.

First of all, Snickers was invented 93 years ago. But back in 2009, Snickers was losing market share. It was in seventh place worldwide. Kit Kat was about to become the number one candy bar brand globally. The problem with Snickers marketing was that it had become too niche. The British campaign, for example, targeted skateboarders only. And every country was doing something different. There was no consistency and no big idea. So the Snickers marketing director asked himself a very insightful question. How do you stay brave when you get big?

Many companies get scared when they get big. They tend to circle the wagons and avoid risk. Their work becomes derivative, not innovative. So they retreat and repeat. That mindset infects their marketing. And Snickers needed an infusion of creativity. So the marketing director told his advertising agency that Snickers was changing its ambition. He wasn't interested in moving up to the number six spot.

He wanted Snickers to be the number one candy bar brand in the world. That's a big, hairy ambition. But that statement told the advertising agency that Snickers wanted a big, hairy idea. The ad agency went away and came back with one. It was anchored with the theme line, you're not you when you're hungry. The first commercial starred an 88-year-old Betty White playing tackle football. It was an interesting insight. You're cranky when you're hungry. Eat a Snickers. Better? Better.

It was an interesting insight. You're cranky when you're hungry. You're not you when you're hungry. Snickers satisfies. The commercial debuted in the 2010 Super Bowl, and the response was incredible. It was voted the best Super Bowl commercial of the past 25 years. After only three months,

Snickers vaulted to the number one spot in North America. Sales increased by 15%. Because the You're Not You and You're Hungry campaign idea was based on a universal human insight, it meant the idea would work around the world and was rolled out to 80 countries, where it inspired endless creative executions. For example, in one country,

all the radio stations switched formats one morning. The country stations started playing heavy metal, the classical station began playing hip-hop, and the rock stations went classical. After an hour, they all stopped and apologized, saying, You're not you when you're hungry. Then the radio hosts took a bite of a Snickers bar, and all the stations returned to their regular programming.

In the UK, five celebrities started tweeting out of character one day. For example, a football star started tweeting about knitting, and a fashion model began tweeting about Keynesian economics. That got more attention than the TV commercial. Snickers even changed its packaging, usually a faux pas in the candy bar category, and started putting words like whiny, ornery, and grouchy on its wrappers in place of the usual Snickers logo.

The beauty of the idea was that every market had the freedom to use its creativity while sticking to the basic strategy, giving Snickers consistency right around the world. You're Not You When You're Hungry added $500 million to the bottom line, and Snickers is now the number one candy bar in the world. Which reminds me of another bar that brought sex to the candy aisle. Canada has done some very good candy bar commercials over the years. When I worked for an advertising agency called Campbell Ewald in the 80s, we had the Nielsen Dairy account and we created ads for candy bars like Jersey Milk and Crispy Crunch. We would have meetings at Nielsen Dairy account, and we created ads for candy bars like Jersey Milk and Crispy Crunch.

We would have meetings at Nielsen's Chocolate Factory on Gladstone Avenue in Toronto. They would always give us a bag of fresh, warm Crispy Crunch bars when the meetings were done. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Delicious. We all gained five pounds working on that account. Our ad agency also did work for Sweet Marie bars. The name Sweet Marie, by the way, was inspired by a love affair. In 1893, after an evening stroll through the streets of London, Ontario, with his girlfriend Marie, a man named Cy Warman was so smitten,

he sat down in a park and wrote a poem called Sweet Marie. It was later put to music. I was secretly in my heart, sweet Marie. A day I wouldn't have enough to do. The Sweet Marie Chocolate Bar debuted in 1931, inspired by that song. Fast forward ahead 55 years. Sweet Marie had a problem. It gave teenage boys fewer bites than other similarly priced bars,

and it simply wasn't cool to be seen eating a Sweet Marie in school hallways. So my colleagues Philippe Garneau and Howard Allstad created a commercial that brought coolness and a little sexiness to the problem. If you were watching television back in 1986, you may remember it. As it begins,

we see a young, good-looking classical musician in a tuxedo walking across a stage. He puts a violin on his shoulder and his bow strikes the strings. But this is what we hear. Then we see a striking blonde girl in a school uniform eating a sweet Marie. With a sassy, rebellious look on her face, she scrunches up the wrapper and flicks it at the camera.

The theme line? Bite off more than you can chew. The commercial really didn't have a storyline. You had to insert your own story. But man, teenagers sure did. And that commercial took off. The girl in the ad personified Sweet Marie. Boys dreamed about her.

Girls wanted to be her. Sexiness came to the candy bar category. And Sweet Marie sales jumped an astonishing 64%. While our advertising agency had a hit with Sweet Marie, we never hit it out of the park for Krispy Kreme. So Nielsen moved that account over to another ad agency called Leo Burnett. In 1988, Krispy Crunch was already 60 years old. The candy bar had always been aimed at teenage boys.

But when the new ad agency did its research, it discovered that Krispy Crunch was nobody's number one bar, but everybody's number two bar. The problem was teenage boys liked a big snack, and Crispy Crunch, like Sweet Marie, didn't deliver. So the ad agency changed the strategy to target young adults instead. Late 20s, males and females, the age when most adults are in relationships or recently married.

Martin Shuchuk was the ad agency creative director and writer on the account. While thinking about that new target audience, he was inspired by this scene in the movie Diner. Where's that roast beef? Don't ask me this anymore, Mo. Yes. You want to finish that? Yeah, I'm going to finish it. I paid for it. I'm not going to give it to you.

If you're not going to finish it, I would eat it. But if you're going to eat it, you're going to... What do you want? Say the words. No, go ahead. You're going to eat it. You eat it. That's all right. Say the words. I want the roast beef sandwich. Say the words and I'll give you a piece. It was exactly how Martin interacted with his wife around food. She ate slowly, savoring each bite.

He wolfed his down and then always asked if she was gonna finish hers. That became the premise for a campaign. That the bar is so delicious, you eat yours, then you want to eat somebody else's. The first commercial showed a young, attractive couple in their apartment. The boyfriend is eating a Krispy Kreme and his girlfriend is eyeing the bar. No. Just one bite. No way.

She playfully chases her boyfriend. They end up in the bedroom wrestling for the Krispy Kreme bar. There is some suggestive giggling. Sometimes the only thing as good as your Krispy Kreme is someone else's. bar. There is some suggestive giggling. Then a discarded crispy crunch wrapper hits the floor beside the bed. That ad led to what Martin said was an avalanche of complaints for its implied sexuality, and it was ordered off the air the very next day by the Canadian Advertising Standards Council.

Fortunately, the ad agency had three other ads ready to go. Can I finish that? Oh, I haven't even started it. Just ask him. You want some? Well, if you're not going to finish it. It was the sexy chemistry between the on-screen couple that struck a chord with viewers. The campaign became hugely popular with the late 20s target audience.

Within six months, Krispy Kreme was the first to be on the show. Krispy Kreme became the number one bar in Canada, up from eighth place. A remarkable leap. And it remained in the number one position for the eight-year duration of the campaign. Back in 2007, Cadbury in Britain was at a low ebb. Less than a year before, the company had a salmonella issue that resulted in a £20 million product recall and a £1 million fine. At that time, the whole candy bar industry had gotten very earnest in its advertising. Instead of having Willy Wonka fun.

Cadbury's new marketing director, Phil Rumble, wanted to change that. Cadbury dairy milk maintained a strong association with milk. A longtime slogan was, a glass and a half of full cream milk in every half pound. Rumble told his advertising agency he wanted a game-changing commercial for their dairy milk bar. A commercial that said chocolate is all about joy. The ad agency came back with a highly unusual idea. They wanted to film a gorilla sitting at a drum kit, grooving to the Phil Collins hit song, In the Air Tonight. Rumble loved the idea.

The commercial begins with the words A Glass and a Half Full Production. We see a gorilla sitting on a stool in front of a huge drum kit. Behind him is a purple wall, the same color as a dairy milk wrapper. The camera starts slowly panning the gorilla. When the camera gets too close, the gorilla snarls, revealing one gold tooth.

The gorilla does nothing but sit there for one full minute, just listening. He is clearly being transported by the music. He closes his eyes. His nostrils begin to flare. The gorilla is anticipating something like he's been waiting for this moment but we don't know what that something is until this happens.

The gorilla comes alive and tears through the famous Phil Collins drum riff, then pounds the drums euphorically for the rest of the commercial. The ad ends with a graphic of a Cadbury dairy milk bar and the line, a glass and a half full of joy. When the director of marketing showed the commercial to his bosses at Cadbury, they thought he was mad.

They said, let's get this straight. The commercial is 90 seconds long, three times longer than a regular commercial. Nothing happens for 60 seconds. There's no chocolate in it and it has no explicit message.

Have we got that right? Rumble stood his ground. And remember, he had just joined the company. He said the commercial did have a message, that Cadbury delivered joy. His superior said, you are never airing this commercial. And that was that for six months. But Rumble persisted and persisted and never gave up. He played the ad for test audiences,

and the reaction was always incredible. Using that as ammunition, he finally persuaded Cadbury to air the Gorilla ad. It ran during the finale of the highly rated reality show Big Brother on August 31st, 2007. The reaction was immediate. The ad became a cultural phenomenon.

Britain was astounded by what they saw on their tellies. The commercial became the most watched advertisement ever on YouTube at that time, racking up 6 million views. The commercial was talked about on news programs and all over the internet. The ad was so well done, many people wondered if it was actually Phil Collins inside a gorilla suit, which, by the way, he denies.

It won the top award at the prestigious Cannes Advertising Festival. The ad spawned parodies, including one from Wonderbra, which showed a woman drumming to the same song, wearing only a black bra with the words, Two cups full of joy. In the Air Tonight went back on the charts in every market the ad was shown in. Phil Collins sent Cadbury a letter thanking them. But here's the important part. The guerrilla commercial halted the Cadbury sales decline and fueled a 10% increase in revenue.

For every dollar Cadbury spent on the marketing, it got nearly $5 back, an astounding return on investment. Brand awareness jumped 20%. And the chocolate company enjoyed record sales for the next two years. The commercial Cadbury didn't want to air, the commercial that had no chocolate in it, two years. The commercial Cadbury didn't want to air, the commercial that had no chocolate in it,

turned out to be a staggering, guerrilla-sized, worldwide success. It is said the average person will consume 10,000 candy bars in a lifetime. That's a lot of treats, and that's why there's a lot of candy bar marketing. Every successful candy bar advertisement must contain at least two of the following three elements. A creative selling idea, taste appeal, and an emotional connection to the brand. Snickers understands that.

It hangs its hat on the fact we all get hangry. Sweet Marie dialed up the sexiness, and by doing so, opened the door so Crispy Crunch could walk right through it. And the Cadbury Gorilla was the epitome of successful candy bar advertising, because it made you feel joy when you watched it. And the Cadbury Gorilla was the epitome of successful candy bar advertising, because it made you feel joy when you watched it. A decade after the Gorilla ad ran, it was voted the best commercial of the last 60 years by the British public. Most people don't remember any commercials the next day. Britain still remembers it ten years later.

Yes, it's just a candy bar. But candy bar advertising, like soft drinks, has little to say but lots to communicate when you're under the influence.

I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream mobile recording studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound engineer, Jeff Devine. Research, Abby Forsythe. Under the influence theme by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre.

Music provided by APM Music. Follow me on social at Terry O. Influence. This is Season 12 of Under the Influence. If you're enjoying this episode, you might also like Even in the Dark, How Packaging Persuades You to Buy, Season 4, Episode 19. You'll find it in our archives wherever you listen to the show.

And you can now find our podcasts on the Apostrophe YouTube channel. And if you think there are too many ads in a show about advertising, shame on you, you can listen ad-free now on Amazon Music. See you next week.

Fun fact. The song Candyman was used as a jingle in an M&M's commercial once, except the words Candyman were changed to M&M's Man. It was not good.