Time To Blossom, Hershey

This package is way overdue for a redesign, or, go back to the old one. It probably changed to this ugly thing when Hershey took over this confection from Lowney. The photo of the chocolate looks awful even though they used the same image as the previous package. It’s a bad colour reproduction. And the yellow colour of the box looks weird too as if it’s a miss-tint of yellow, more on the green side than orange which unfortunately does not show in this photo below.

I don’t know how the sales are of these things. They must be alright because they are still making them. I love them (even though hey are terribly sweet) and have been eating them for over 40 years. I am really glad they, in this day and age where food stuff packaging is all plastic or foil-sealed, that they have remained wrapped in the old fashioned chocolate bar foil, and are in a box that you don’t have to rip open.

https://youtu.be/xgawtIMv39s

Here is a link to a great commercial for Cherry Blossom from the 70’s

This is what it feels like to eat these things!

OH! I would be So Happy!

I was sitting at a coffee shop before work and In the corner of my eye I saw the chocolate bar stand and the side of a box of Oh Henry chocolate bars. But I couldn’t believe my eyes as I saw the words SO Happy instead of Oh Henry. Brilliant I thought, what a great idea for them to do that. But when I actually looked, I saw it really ‘only’ said Oh Henry. 

And this got me thinking. It’s a great Idea. Now to sell them on it. (Hershey). Let’s make this happen!

So this is what I came up with by mimicking the current Oh Henry wrapper design.

Caramilk Wrapper Evolution

This to me is the classic Caramilk wrapper. Maybe it's when I started to pay attention in the late 80's.
And the whole advertising campaign they had with the Caramilk secret, even in the seventies and using the Mona Lisa and her smile....all of it quite brilliant. I love how the 'wave' graphic starts to change through the years and also you get to see the Cadbury logo change. As a personal note, I do not like the  foil wrappers that are used now as they are so much harder to open without tearing.

Chocolate Bar Certificate For A 100 Grand.

actually 100 grams
     Does this not look like a certificate or something like a stock or bond! Or the Golden Ticket from the Willy Wonka factory. The gold print and beautiful script lettering makes it look very regal and the separately stamped product batch number makes it look like it's registered and of course the gold foil wrap which starts to look like a gold bar.
     This wrapper is from around 1998, just before the 75th anniversary of Neilson's Jersey Milk in 1999 Though it was being made by Cadbury I am happy that they kept the old Neilson brand on the package and even to this day! After the 75th anniversary wrapper which was very similar to this one, they changed the package to a vertical sealed file wrap using mostly all the same design and coloring.
     What I find interesting is that really nobody, except for the graphic designers or printers, would ever have really seen the wrapper displayed in this fashion and it wasn't meant to be. I love it.

OH Design!

A few weeks back I was in Dollarama to buy my favorite chocolate bar and I was a bit confused in making sure that I had the right one because they make a peanut butter version as well.  But it wasn't until I was in line to pay that I noticed that it was a completely new wrapper, hence my earlier confusion. I love it when packaging design changes. I was excited.

When I was on the bus I couldn't wait to pull out my henry to study it. Yeah I felt goofy, just staring at it, turning it around in my hands and of course picking it apart.  I wish I could have been there in the final stages to tweak it to a better state. I seem to have some relationship issues between the OH and the Henry. Something is off kilter. I know what it is but I won't get into it. The chocolate bar still tastes Great!

Kit Kat Evolution

Rowntree's chocolate covered wafer bar was first introduced in England in 1935 and was renamed Kit Kat in 1937. In the 1940's Kit Kat was exported and sold in Canada.

From 1945-1947 the original red wrapper was replaced by blue due to the shortage of milk.

I love the Rowntree logo on this 10cent wrapper and I seem to enjoy the brand design a lot more here, than I did when it was reintroduced by Nestle after they bought Rowntree in 1988

It's interesting how certain design elements are are phased in or out. The chocolate bar for example or slight lettering changes. You can also see here the number of grams the bar weighs fluctuating and then it's really super to see the evolution of Nestle's continual logo change.

Real LIVE Wacky Packages

1974 art for ScreamSicle - From the book Wacky Packages New New New published in 2010 by Abrams  

I grew up buying Wacky Packages trading card gum stickers and I putting them all over my notebooks and dresser. ( I wish I didn't) but I still love them to this day. There have been hundreds of them made over the years and there has even been a resurgence of interest in them with the Topps company putting out collections and books and new stickers!

So, I almost couldn't believe it when I saw Nestle's daringly humorous move to temporarily change their best selling candy bar packaging for a novelty halloween theme. These are real live Wacky Packages!

I must say that the Kit Kat design here is rather lame. The Kat is pretty cool but none of it says Halloween like the other three do. Below are some of the other candy bar related wacky package stickers Topps put out. But like I said there are hundreds of these little designed paintings of all sorts of products. In another post I'll put up some more of my favorites.

 1974

 1974

 1979

 1979

2006

Super Freeway

This is an amazing eye catching ad I pulled out of a 1953 magazine. I could imagine in it's day, a huge billboard along side of the new super freeway.  I love the wonky hand lettering.   

Caramilk Secret Evolution

A NEW TASTE IN A NEW FORM

     Fry's and Cadbury's were two huge chocolate makers each with a long history before they merged in 1919. The Canadian based  Fry-Cadbury of Montreal first sold the Caramilk bar in 1968 and remains to this day as a Canadian-only item. Currently the bars are produced at one location, the company's Gladstone Chocolate Factory in Toronto.

  

 

    Last year I posted a visual evolution of the Aero chocolate bar wrapper with the main body comprised from the wrappers in my collection and with finding a few of the earliest designs on the internet. For my Caramilk evolution I have done the same, in filling out a few design gaps between this wrapper shown above and below, of what I believe to be the first wrapper, to where my run of wrappers start at 0108 00 04.

  

In 1969 Cadbury merged with Schweppes up until its demerger in 2008.

     There is a pretty big visual jump or perhaps lump in the designs with these two above and below wrappers, so it's possible that I am missing one or two, but I would not be surprised if this is it. From the time period of 1976 of the wrapper above (as shown by the Olympic symbol from the Canada Olympic games which were held in Montreal in 1976) and the obvious 1970's design motif of the wrapper below, there was not a lot of time in between these to have had multiple designs. I think its great how the pyramid shaped took on a hill-like appearance and the horizon lines took suit in that 70's vibra-tone. Kinda even looks like a geographic slice of the ground as if there is gooey lava inside. It also mirrors the profile shape of a section of the bar. Also notice the major shift back to Cadbury's older original logo design which they were using in their other chocolate bars. We will start to see this logo evolve as well! 

     Keep your eye on the swirl and look how many other changes you will find...

 

 

o108 00 04

     Between the above and below designs there were 7 other wrapper changes as shown by printing serial number at the top of the wrapper. But you can see that all those changes must have been promotion/contest offers like the one below with no real change to the actual lettering style or logo design. Even when there is an ingredient change or a change in the order of the ingredients, you will see a change in the serial number. 

o108 00 12 

o108 00 13

o108 00 14

o108 00 15

o108 00 16

o108 00 19

6-1470-178-002

6-1470-178-002

     The above design is current to date though there was a 003 design with a large key for a 250,000 dollar contest held last year, but a recently acquired bar had this 002 design.

     In February 2010 Kraft won a takeover bid to gain control of Cadbury for 18.9 billion dollars of which they had to borrow 11.5 billion.

 

Aero Evolution

From Here To There

Wow, what a big change from this top left wrapper of 1987 to the top right wrapper 0f 2010. It seems like night and day, but if you look at all the changes that took place in between it mostly seems like a natural evolution and a  comment on the times in design. As well,  we will see the continual one-up-man-ship and how the effect of steroids in cows milk that affect the young designers today as if they are on acid. (just kidding) Read on. 

   

UPC bar codes began widespread use in the beginning 1980's.

52-50-066 This is an Aero Chocolate Bar wrapper from around 1987. This same design had been used since the 1960's with virtually no changes. Aero was originally made by Rowntree (since 1935) but merged with Mackintosh in 1969. The bars were previously 36 grams.

L5-50-115  In 1987 Rowntree Macintosh went public and in 1988 was bought by Nestle with an offering value at 4.55 billion dollars.  We now see the Nestle logo up front on the wrapper. In the following wrappers watch how the logo changes. 

If you look at the top of the wrapper there is a 7 digit number. The last three numbers seem to change with every slight change in design or alteration of the printed wrapper. I have a Caramilk wrapper where there is a single increment number difference and the only foreseable difference was a switch in the order that a couple of the ingredients appeared in.  So since the time of the wrapper shown above this one, there has been 49 changes to the wrapper. I am only showing a sampling of major changes in the design appearance of the wrapper.

Oh yeah, the Aero lettering design had finally changed after all those years and Nestle cut a gram of chocolate out.

Is there a difference between Milk Chocolate and Pure Milk Chocolate? Look above at the four wrappers shown together.

L5-50-129  Here we go with the Bubbles in the phrase Pure Bubbly Milk Chocolate.

L5-50-177  Oooo, splashly , wow, really in the big design mode now, what could be better than this? Can you sense sarcasm here. Why could'nt they just go on to the next wrapper? It seems that in product design one could only make little tiny adjustments to the design for fear of loosing customer familiarity or making it seem too much like a different product all together. So, I guess it's bubble steps....um, I mean, baby steps.

Notice the newer Nestle logo which has been continually evolving as well, and..... Aero is Big on Bubbles.

L5-50-242   I just love how the bubbles have now exploded throughout the design. I absolutely love this one. Why the pause after Big........? Again a new Nestle logo.

L5-50-242  (Why is this number the same as previous wrapper?) There are many changes again. The bubble slogan has changed and the Nestle logo has changed again! This wrapper from March 2010

Huge overhaul of Aero lettering style. (April 2010) I was not a fan at first, but it's growing on me. The number at the top is a whole new ball game. The slogan 'Have you felt the bubbles melt' has been shoved to the sidelines. Will it be totally gone next time around?