Lindt Lindor Sea Salt review

Over the holidays I came across a Lindt treat I had not had before.  It was part of the festive special chocolates from Swiss Chalet (something my Canadian friends will know!)  Take a look and see what you think!

In case you missed it here are a few other Lindt videos.

If you are not subscribed yet head over to the youtube page and sign up for new reviews twice weekly!

Doughy Goodness

Not since a certain shapely dough boy first giggled his way into our hearts has the deliciousness of uncooked cookie dough been as celebrated as much as it is here. Why? Because Taste of Nature has a mainline to that nostalgic goodness baked (or unbaked I should say) into every bite of their Cookie Dough line of candies.

For your consideration, here are 4 of those Cookie Dough Bites up for review. Enjoy, and may your dreams be filled with doughy goodness.


Pretty good stuff overall; and definitely an original in the market.

Stay up on all of the Candy Aisle reviews by heading over to our YouTube Channel and SUBSCRIBING right now!
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M&M's Peanut Butter review

We've got a great one up for review today, its time to check out M&M's Peanut Butter.



Walking the Candy Aisle rates M&M's Peanut Butter - 5 / 5

M&Ms are of course a Mars product. For more on all things M&Ms please check out the website - http://www.mms.com/

Crispy Crunch review

Today we've got one of the high marks in Canadian chocolate bars up for review, its the Crispy Crunch.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Crispy Crunch - 4 / 5

Crispy Crunch is a Kraft Canada product, keep up with them on their Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/Kraft

Twix Peanut Butter review

More peanut butter today for you. It's time to check out the Twix Peanut Butter.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Twix Peanut Butter - 4 / 5

For more, please check out the Twix webpage.  And as always for more reviews you should head over to the Candy Aisle YouTube page and Subscribe!

Oh Henry! Peanut Butter review

Today we've got a different shew for you of a Canadian standard, it's the Oh Henry! Peanut Butter.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Oh Henry! Peanut Butter - 4 / 5

 For more on Oh Henry! check them out on the internets. Or head over to our Reviews Page and peruse our other reviews.

Reese Sticks review

Today we've got a fun sku of the Reese products, its time to check in with Reese Sticks.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Reese Sticks - 4 / 5

For more on Reese and all Hershey products, please check them out on the world wide internets at http://www.hersheys.com/reeses/  or visit their facebook. Alternately if you want more awesome reviews please browse on over to our Reviews Page, or just keep it locked here to the blog for reviews twice weekly.

Reese Peanut Butter Cup review

Today we've got another big dog up for review. Let's look at the Reese Peanut Butter Cup.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Reese Peanut Butter Cup - 4 / 5

Great stuff, and a must try for anyone who even has a passing interest in peanut butter. For more on the Reese's family of products you can visit them at their home on the web right here. For more reviews, please stay tuned to this blog, YouTube Channel, and Reviews Page. Thanks :)

M&Ms Ads - Becoming Superstars

When last we talked about the M&Ms the little candy coated super-stars we're headed full tilt into the new Millennium. While other companies we're floundering to maintain clean cut mascots in a world full of cynical and way too smart kids the M&Ms managed to ride a tide of good will bolstered by smart mature humor and a constantly evolving sensibility that kept them fresh. Maybe what worked so well for them was that they stopped being aimed specifically at kids. The M&M characters left their pure cartoon roots with the introduction of the mixed media CG versions of the characters, and Mars stopped even making commercials without them. They reached a mass awareness that few mascots have ever achieved and kept on pushing, to become, and stay, the biggest of mega-stars in the candy world.

To be honest, figuring out how this all went down is pretty confusing so |I'm going to assume I will be getting some of this wrong. Lets be clear: I am not a historian. This is a light fun pop survey of the modern M&M characters as seen through their advertizing. There are other places on the web, or in print if you're looking for cold hard facts. Like Yellow, we're just here to have a good time :)

So as we got into the early 00s foreign markets expanded, the brand grew, and ads specifically targeted at non-western markets began to hit. This change alone makes sifting the chaff on the internet pretty complicated especially since some of the campaigns and ads were used in different countries at different times, or under different circumstances. Anyhow, suffice it to say the opening of foreign markets and ad campaigns, makes it extremely messy.

Lets take a step back though and have a look at some ads.  As the century ended, the M&Ms were interacting with celebs in new mixed media adverts, and establishing the core dynamic of the Red Yellow relationship that we all know and love.

The candies declaring themselves the Spokescandies of the new Millennium at end of '97, and I missed one ad they featured in one that I had to share. I love this one, and wanted to make sure I posted it.



Its great to see Dick Clark still young (youngish) and its nice that he was comfortable making fun of his age.

With the launch of Crispy M&Ms in '99 there were more than a few ads featuring the new character and flavor.



Oh Puddy. You always entertain me :D



And Red, you're always pulling fast ones...

As I said Red and Yellow especially we're developing the classic Laurel and Hardy playing off each other riffs, and the public loved it. Here are a few other turn of the century ads that feature the M&Ms just being their own funny selves.



That is a little disturbing. funny but disturbing. This next one just features Red, but its pretty cute.



And finally here's an ad from '99 that I think shows where all the ads were headed in the early '00s.



This is a really great one. The airport ad is awesome because it showcases Red and Yellow doing their thing. It's got them bickering lovingly, being funny interacting with our world. They even break the fourth wall directly, they acknowledge that they are in fact candy, and it all wraps up with a solid tag at the end. This is the shape of the ads to come.

Getting into the 2000s for real-sies now they launched a fun campaign at the start of the year.



This is great on a number of levels, but I think the most important thing to note is the solo color offering. This is one of the first time solo colors were offered for a promotion. AND this wasn't a promotion tied into a holiday like Easter or Xmas where they gave us specially colored (or flavored) editions of the candy. This was just for the heck of it.

Another fun thing came up in the year 2000. And the next very serious ad addresses it perfectly.



That's right. Plain has changed, and in 2000 M&Ms re-branded their classic candy as Milk Chocolate. Such an obvious thing, but remember back when M&Ms started it was really a different world.



One more cute one on this, because I as I've mentioned before I smile for Patrick Warburton and always want him to succeed.

2000 also saw the release of two new M&M video games: The Lost Formula and Mini Madness.



In 2001 M&Ms started a long and strange journey trying out a lot of weird and sometimes very interesting flavors. For this outing they tried their hand at Dulce de Leche in some 5 Hispanic countries. Although it was a valiant attempt and actually sounds pretty good there wasn't much interest apparently and the product line was discontinued by '03.



In 2002 the ads continued, only got a bit more sophisticated. The Laurel and Hardy routine that Red and Yellow we're perfecting still had to be tempered. As much as I like the Airport commercial above its also VERY 90s. Here's the kind of standard ad that typified the early 2000s. Even though it only has Red you can see that it shows a literal and quirky take on the candy. More importantly it's just plain funny.



Love that Bradley Whitford (and this ad is during the height of his run on The West Wing).

2002 also saw the return and update of a previous successful ad campaign. The Global Color Vote was essentially the same trick they'd pulled in '95 but this time it was between Pink, Purple, or Aqua as the new color.



Here's a French ad featuring some cheerleaders?!



After Purple won the contest, it became an M&M color for a limited time. I'm not sure why they didn't keep it around or give us a new mascot like they did when Blue made the scene but they did feature a nifty contest looking for the bag full of Purple M&Ms to win a prize.



In 2004 the M&Ms launched another cool color campaign, only this one was all about the missing color! The hunt was on to find Grey M&Ms this time and it all started with this funny ad.



Here's one that maybe explains it a bit better.



And I always loved this bloodhound one though. Great stuff.



One of the interesting things about M&Ms getting so popular in the 2000s is that they started doing huge tie in marketing promotions. M&Ms had a number of movie tie ins over the years  2004 saw the start of the cross media tie ins, And not just with The Wizard of Oz. No instead I mean this beauty below inspired by the Addams Family to promote another limited run on Dark Chocolate M&Ms.



That's not all from '04 though. M&Ms also got big, and I don't mean regular big, I mean OGRE sized!



I actually think this tie in with Shrek 2 is a great one. M&Ms and Shrek are a really perfectly paired brand. But since M&Ms were in the midst of experiments in size and shape 2004 saw the first appearance of the most radical change yet, the M-Azing chocolate bar!



It sounds like the M-Azing bar was only moderately successful. The bar apparently stuck around in some form or another straight through until today and was finally re-branded and re-launched in 2013 as the new M&M chocolate bar. A bit more on that in the next post.

Aside from featuring in the new M-Azing  bar, the M&M Minis we're also going strong in '04. I posted a few ads from this era of the Minis in my last blog post on this subject but here is another one to show you where the Mini advertizing was at the time.



At first I thought it seemed like a very 90s ad but then I realized that the M&M minis were being targeted at kids, while regular M&Ms were targeted at everyone.

Speaking of mass marketing the following year M&Ms teamed up with another film franchise that had probably the biggest mass market appeal possible. Watch the ad below to see the M&Ms join the Dark Side...



Watching this I have to wonder why Mars never just out and out put out a Dark Chocolate M&M on a permanent basis. I know they've got a few specialties at all times these days, but its weird that they kept bringing it back as a limited run.

2005 also saw the launch of Mega M&Ms. I'm guessing that the Ogre sized M&Ms went over so well that they decided to continue the line.



I know that ad didn't have the M&M characters in it but its pretty funny..

If the Chocolate M-Pire tie in wasn't the breaking point then it had to be the M&M tie ins for '06. These guys weren't just well known spokes-candies, they were true celebrities unto themselves. In 2006 Red and Yellow made a mark adjacent to Joan Rivers at the Academy Awards pre-show. To me this is huge.



Think about the number of eyeballs on that broadcast. Think about the fact that there are people who care about this from really all over the world. Its pretty serious stuff. I mean as serious as you can get for entertainers who aren't actually stars on the big screen.

They may be super-commercialized.... but can you blame them? I mean they are commercial characters. 2006 also saw ties ins for Pirates 3, and Shrek 3.


Pirates 3 in saw the launch of limited time white chocolate M&Ms, and Shrek the Third saw the return of Ogre sized M&Ms again, as well as this vacation contest.



I'm going to jump ahead a bit now, in 2008 M&Ms finally hit on a weird urban myth for their gain. At Valentines they launched a limited run of all green M&Ms. Green you ask? yes. I'm not sure how well known the rumor is now, but I totally remember as a kid hearing that green M&Ms we're for sexy time...



These also came at Christmas time that year. As good a time as any for an aphrodisiac (weather its true or not).

The summer of 2008 saw another side product launched from M&Ms. The M&M ice cream bar.




Its true...



That's pretty funny :)

 New limited time flavors also emerged in 2008. Wild Cherry hit the scene alongside Mint Crisp M&Ms as a promotion tied into Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.



The biggest promotion of 2008 though came with the launch of mymms.com. Now there was finally a chance to change things up, and get your face, or whatever you wanted printed onto your M&Ms. Very exciting stuff.


After this commercial Mars took a different tack making a bunch of pretty funny commercials letting regular people become an M&M.


That ones probably my favorite, but there are some other great ones.


ha, contacts...


Gross but funny.


ha, earholes...


Good stuff all around.

Before I finally wrap this very long blog post up I'll mention one more 2008 M&Ms item. The launch of Premiums. Ms Green finally got something all her own here and it turned out quite well.

5 flavors of premiums were launched. I know I ate a few of them. They had a 'high end' vibe to them and I suppose they were pretty decadent.


Of course we know that Mint has been around since this time in on again off again limited runs, but this is where I first had it. A few more of the flavors were Rasberry Almond, which is actually a current limited run flavor, and Triple Chocolate. Both sound great to me.



I've had these and they do taste great.



mmm... so delicious sounding.

When we come back to this topic, I'll pick up from 2008 and we can watch some more ads together. These crazy M&Ms just became superstars right under your noses...  pretty impressive.  Thanks all, later :)

Aisle Walking - July

Every day while walking down the candy aisle, or the toy aisle, or the ice cream aisle I see fun and weird things. Some of these I want to mention but lots of them are just so brief that I can't be bothered making a stand alone blog post, so to alleviate that I thought I'd try a new blog monthly series called Aisle Walking. Essentially this will be a mish mash of things seen in the aisles. I'd love it to hear about it you have fun things you've seen. New stuff is always showing up and I'm always interested in strange variants on existing products. Now I'm still planning on posting some things on their own, but for the lots of little items this will be the round up.

So lets have a look and see what we can see for this past month or so :)

I found this out at a Staples of all places (that's an office supply store). I don't know why I am surprised to see this, I mean of course Planters should be competing with Reese I'm just surprised that I've never seen this before.

We all know that Red Velvet is the hippest of all cakes, and in cupcake form it cannot be beat. I'm impressed that this package comes with some frosting packets included.

This is just a small note that all of the formerly named "Dessert Delight" products seem to now be called simply Desserts. I noticed this a while ago with the Lemon Square flavor, but am surprised to see the entire line change it up. Could this be an only in Canada thing???

I've seen these Kit Kat flavors (only available in the 8 packs) out at the local Wal Mart for a while now, but they seem to be expanding their reach. I had assumed that they were just going to be limited editions around for a little while, but maybe they'll actually be staying.

So this exists. It shouldn't really be a surprise since Nestle also owns the Carnation brand, but for some reason seeing chocolate bars in other places always strikes me as interesting.

Lets talk cookies for a sec. Seriously these Chunks Ahoy look great! I am sold :D

Birthday Cake flavor Oreos are back. Seriously does it count as a Limited Edition if its been on shelves for like 4 years?!

Now this is new, and it looks amazing! Chocolate and Mint together in a triple stuff? yes please!

I've seen Rolo ice cream before, but did you know there was Rolo Peanut Butter ice cream? Sounds great.

So that's all I've got for you this month. I'll try to make this a regular feature. Its fun to just touch on all of the quick stuff that's going on in the candy aisle and beyond.

M&Ms ads - the 90s

A few weeks ago I posted a long and involved post talking about some of the evolution of M&M advertising on television. I encourage you to go read that post first. It was really fun writing the post since I got to parse through a ton of my favorite old M&M ads. Today I thought I'd follow up with the next part of the story and have a look at the more modern M&M ads of the 90s.

M&Ms themselves are really fascinating, and the ads have gone through a lot of changes over the years. But the 90s are characterized by some really dense advertizing. The M&Ms were becoming legitimate stars in their own right, and the advertizing and products went in a number of interesting directions. When last we left off the year was 1992 and M&M had just celebrated their 50th anniversary, and introduced both Peanut Butter and Almond varieties. And just to note the ads I'm really talking about here are all centered around the M&Ms characters, not the commercials with just humans :)

As I said, M&Ms were so popular now that they really seem to have had multiple ad campaigns running concurrently. In some cases you could still find old 80s style M&M commercials featuring M&Ms in pure cartoon settings.



But M&Ms also in the late 80s into the early 90s created a lot of commercials without their mascots entirely. I'm not sure if these were meant to appeal more to adults since they obviously at some point realized the true value of the mascots and basically stopped doing commercials without them, but its interesting nonetheless.

Additionally they made the big transition around this era. It was becoming more and more common to see the M&Ms interacting with real humans. And often not just any humans but celebrities.


That's Daisy Fuentes, model and MTV VJ.



And the incomparable Robert Pastorelli of Murphy Brown fame.

Also since I forgot to mention it earlier M&Ms started featuring Christmas and Easter seasonal bags in 1986. They had pastel colored seasonal M&Ms for Easter-time, and red and green for Xmas.

 

And...

 

Here's my absolute favorite Christmas one :)



Probably the next big innovation to M&Ms came in 1995 when they ran a campaign to vote on the next new color of M&M to be introduced.



The vote was actually to replace the tan colored M&Ms which were being discontinued. As you can see from the funny ads below featuring Wings star Steven Weber and the M&Ms the winner was a new favorite of mine, Blue.



And here's another funny one.



Interesting as far as I can tell Blue was not as of yet associated with a specific flavor, unless it was Almond. Its hard to determine exactly when that happened.Currently all of the different M&M colors are associated with certain flavors, but I don't think that was always the case.

Moving on though, in 1996 M&Ms decided to branch out again, this time with M&M minis.



These little guys have been giving Red and yellow a hard time ever since.Its funny, the Minis are kind of like a cross between a swarm of kiler bees and a crazed Looney Tunes character.

Here's a great example of the kind of pranks the Minis pull.



And I know this is skipping ahead a bit but I love these Mini commercials from the early 2000s as well and they fit into this same category :)



Yeah, of course Red rides the bus.



I LOVE this one. Talk about Looney Tunes!



And of course this is a great example of Red and Yellow just getting tossed around. Pretty typical stuff for the era.

Now it gets a bit tricky around this part but by the late 90s both Ms Green and Orange had also been established as M&M personalities. Unlike Blue these were soft and ongoing changes to character since both colors had been around for quite a while.

Starting with Green, lets have a look at some of her early appearances. She is of course the first woman M&M and they really played up the sexy angle. I mean A LOT.



She's also always had a real air of celebrity to her.



Was that inappropriate? I'm honestly not sure how to take it. Now I know this one is from much more recently, but how about this...



And then of course there's this one final one, my personal favorite.



Now that's pretty funny.

When Green was introduced she was associated loosely with Dark Chocolate, but now she reps for Peanut Butter, Mint, and Coconut. Although with that I have to wonder why Orange isn't on Peanut Butter anymore?

Orange on the other hand is the neurotic part of the M&M gang. He got a personality pretty early on but it wasn't until the introduction of Crispy M&Ms in 1999 that he found a calling and got his own full ad campaign. Here's a great ad with Orange and Halle Berry.

 

Love it. This guys always cracked me up and I wish they would've found more for him to do in those early days. While I liked Crispy M&Ms (they were discontinued Stateside in 2005) after the initial burst there wasn't much advertizing support for them. And so it wasn't until Pretzel M&Ms came along much later that Orange got a chance to shine again. For now though lets look at a few more ads featuring Orange from the late 90s.



Talk about neurotic.



That's another really fun one. And finally lets have one with your friend and mine Patrick Warburton.



Oh Puddy...

As the M&Ms launched into the 2000s they were of course the official spokescandy of the  Millenium. And yes they may have been a bit early on it...



And what do the M&Ms get paid anyhow?



Oh Red and Yellow... you really can't help but love these guys. By this point they've fully developed the Laurel and Hardy routine and are just riffing some great jokes.

And once the M&Ms got into the new Millennium properly things got even bigger for them. While other companies like MacDonalds the cereal companies had tougher and tougher times selling the public on their cutesy characters, M&Ms simply didn't. Their focus on fun, and funny irreverant evolving humor made them stand out and become even bigger stars that any reasonable person would've thought possible. These guys are up there with the biggest spokespeople in the world, and its great to see how they continue to work in a modern setting.

Next time we'll delve into the M&Ms megastardom of the 2000s. Until then, lets not forget how great the candy actually is. Great candy and some stellar advertizing. Its certainly a winning combination.

The Big Bar Line Up - Cadbury Dairy Milk

One of the major areas in the candy aisle that I've neglected since starting the blog has been the big bar section. You know the area I mean, that area beside the regular day to day chocolate bars that features the large size, sometimes premium always more expensive chocolate bars. I've never been the kind of person to go in for those chocolate bars. And mostly I think that has to do with price. Despite running a blog on the topic, I usually buy my chocolate on the spur of the moment. Buying the big bars just seems like too much forethought. My chocolate cravings are immediate, and I don't want to have a huge bar... if I did I might eat it all at once. Also and maybe more importantly I'm not fancy. While I know the space has changed over the last few years these big bars at least traditionally came from the premium retailers. They were always a better quality chocolate that demanded more attention. I am much more of an impulse driven, spur of the moment quick fix kind of consumer.

BUT there are a ton of great looking chocolate bars out there in the big bar section. Over a few posts I'd like to share some pics and minor thughts with you on some of these big bars. At least you can get a sense for what the lineup looks like here in Canada. Today I'm going to kick things off with Cadbury, other than Lindt there are more Cadbury bars in this big bar section than any other, and its predominantly highlighted by the Dairy Milk line.

Now I've tried to compile a complete list, but I might very well have missed something so just let me know in the comments if you've see anything else in your neck of the woods :)

Of course the classic Cadbury Diary milk kicks things off.

This along with the Fruit and Nut variety are (I believe) the only Big Bars from its line up to make it into the smaller more handheld size.

I've never been a fan of fruit and nut. It just seems like the fruitcake of chocolate bars...

Surprisingly they don't feature a straight up peanut and chocolate mix. Not to say I don't like caramelized peanut. but it seems like a classic has been passed over...

I am a huge cashew fan and they simply don't get enough love in the  chocolate world, so this is really nice to see. I wonder what the thought is about cashew on its own... seems like that should work. Too bad we don't have one to try out.

Here are two more classic flavors paired with Cadbury's excellent Dairy Milk chocolate. I am a fan of Mint in most any form, but Toffee can be pretty hit or miss.

Note the "new" label on the package. How it took them so long to come out with this is beyond me. The only thing I can think is that Hershey's Cookies N Cream has so dominated the market that they didn't see the value in their own brand. That said, I am very happy to see this hitting shelves here.

Here's an interesting one. Other than M&Ms, is there even another Pretzel chocolate on the market??? I sure can't think of one. Pretzels and peanut butter do go well together, but I have to say this feels weird to me. Like its something I'd want to work well, but just wouldn't.

This seems like a clear jump onto the Nestle bandwagon following the Aero bars lead. I have to say although its clearly copying, I would like to try it. Aeros are honestly some of Nestle's best bars and I'd love to see that form in with Cadbury quality chocolate to back it up.

Well here are the Premium bars I guess. Cadbury is a pretty accessible brand but you still can't get away with Dark Chocolate being much of anything but a specialty. I'm sure these are great, but like I said before, I'm not fancy, and I am clearly much more interested in milk chocolate than dark.

That's all I've got on Cadbury, but after taking a closer look at these bars I think I'll have to make the investment in a few to try out. If only for the sake of the blog :) I think I'd like to try the Caramelized Peanut, the Cashew and Hazelnut, and the Cookie Crunch most. According to Cadbury's UK website they have a number of flavors available overseas that we do not have here, including a Toffee Popcorn which would be pretty interesting... Let me know if you've got any favorites from this line up below. I'll be back next time with a look at another Big Bar line up.

M&Ms ads - early years

A few weeks ago I posted some thoughts on those little candy mascots the M&Ms. When it comes to candy mascots there is literally none bigger. They showed up in the 50s and 60s but it wasn't until the 80s when advertizing went crazy that the M&M characters themselves started really taking over the entirety of the marketing. Still most of the ads you'll find for M&Ms are from the mid 80S onward. Of course, its not like there were VCRs around before the late 80s so that might be a factor too!

Regardless I thought I'd share some of my favorite M&M commercials with you here. This is by no means a complete list. And I'm not claiming to be any expert on M&Ms or the M&M characters. Like most of you out there I just really love the ads.

Here's a very early 50s ad for M&Ms

From Plain to Peanut. I love it. Swimming in chocolate and zipping up their "sugar" shells. This is the start of something awesome.

In these next two M&M commercials from the 70s they really play up the messiness angle.

Especially in that fist ad I have to say the chocolate mess is pretty gross. While I love the tag line of Melts in your Mouth and Not in Your Hand, I have to say I'm glad they abandoned this angle of marketing. Its not so pleasant to watch.

Jumping ahead again, in 1984 M&Ms became the official candy of the Olympic games (held in LA that year). This is the first time I can find that you really see the M&Ms as a group. A fun loving, partying group.

Doesn't it make sense to see them all together like that? I mean you get a whole bag full. And it works well for the Olympics. 

And then in mid 80s M&Ms got a bigger sized bag. Here are some fun ads for that :)

What I really like about these ads is this they really further develops the M&Ms as a community. They're much more cartoony, and they start to give the M&Ms themselves more of a story.

This next one was a favorite of mine as a kid.

I think this ad is really awesome, no only because the M&Ms all go on vacation with each other, but that they're such a rowdy fun group. I know they don't have their individual personalities developed much at this point, but there's something kind of awesome about having like 30 M&Ms in a big crazy group partying rather than just Red and Yellow on their own. This is what M&Ms were about back then, a family (or at least a fraternity) of candy. Shouldn't M&Ms be a fun loving party all the time?.

Here's another funny one from 1988. I love the way the process is imagined here. That they actually have to go swimming in chocolate and then shower in a candy shell is genius. This is also a good example of some developing personality for Peanut. Such a goofball :)

Tell me that's not a party! And very cutting edge stuff with that computer.

One of the things I always loved about these old M&M commercials that has been lost over the years is that these commercials were so wholesome. They were really family friendly. Now I think people expect different things from their advertising, but I'm nostalgic for these old comfortable ads.

In 1990 M&Ms celebrated their 50th Birthday. a long time for any candy to be around, and Its cool to see the M&M mascots right front and center for the party.

Then finally a breakthrough for M&Ms came in the early 90s. The introduction of   M&Ms Peanut Butter!

And while they'd had limited runs in before this 1992 also saw the permanent introduction of M&Ms Almond.

Finally, we'll end today's look at some old M&M ads with this one where the M&Ms themselves get nostalgic. I like the fact that they can reference their own history. It kind of brings the whole advertising campaign full circle. 

Talk about some enduring mascots, these guys have been though A LOT.

Next time we'll look at M&M ads in the 90s, through the refinement of their personalities and into the new millennium!

Kit Kat Chunky PB Spotted

So I was pretty surprised to see this limited edition (?) Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter staring back at me from the aisle in Shoppers Drug Mart this past weekend. I don't think I've ever heard of a Kit Kat Peanut Butter before. And while I know I haven't reviewed it yet on the Candy Aisle, I am a MASSIVE fan of the Chunky line. So needless to say this is very exciting.

To add to the interesting it looks like Nestlé Canada is (or was) having a little vote on their Facebook page - the Kit Kat Chunky Challenge page linked here. You see they actually released two variants on the Chunky bars just before Easter: Peanut Butter and a Hazlenut. Then people were challenged to vote on the best tasting one, presumably that one would stick around while the other went away. Unfortunately thats not how things worked out.

Now I know I'm late to the game on this, but seriously this isn't a candy news blog. The thing is hat there were several reports of people finding bits of plastic in their new Kit Kat Chunky bars.... I know, gross. According to reports the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued a warning to consumers, and then Nestlé voluntarily had the products recalled. I believe this affected other countries but I'm finding it hard to confirm that. According to The Grocer blog (which is a very good food and candy news blog btw)  Nestlé also recalled some Easter Eggs, and Chunky bars in Chocolate Fudge and Caramel varieties (although I don't know if those variants were sold here in Canada).

Not to worry though my intrepid Kit Kat lovers, check out the page linked here to see the affected product lines and make sure you cross check you next Kit Kat Chunky before eating. I'm pretty sure all the big chain stores would have gotten rid of the bad product by now, but better safe than sorry right.

I definitely would like to try a Kit Kat Peanut Butter, but now I'm a bit nervous. I'll have to make sure the best before dates on it are new before getting one... and even then I expect I'll be a bit squeamish. Its a shame when things like this happen, but at least Nestlé stepped up and did the right thing.

M&M Musings

Today I thought we'd take some time out of our bust schedule and talk shop a bit about your favorite candy mascots and mine the M&Ms.

Now why it has taken me so long to write a basic post on these iconic mascots is beyond me. Perhaps its all just a bit daunting, I mean when you're talking big league candy mascots they simply get no bigger than the M&Ms. Also the M&Ms have such a history to them, I'm not talking just academically here, I'm talking on a deep personal level I have strong emotions and memories of the M&Ms from my youth. Where do you begin when you're talking about a brand mascot, a whole series of brand mascots who so dominate the playing field that others are, I think, scared to even get out of the gate?

Well, for me I thought I'd talk a bit today about the M&Ms themselves. Why does it even work? You've got a great little chocolate and candy confection, I mean I think we all know plain, or 'milk chocolate' M&Ms as they are now called, are really fantastic,  but why do you even think to put arms and a face on them for the marketing? I know there have been a lot of food mascots over the years, heck even Wikipedia lists the Quaker Oats Man going back to 1877, But I have to think it wasn't until Mr Peanut came along in the 30s that people really got to see a mascot that was made of his own product. More often than not you had some associated person, or cuddly cartoon animal hocking your wares, think Toucan Sam, or the Jolly Green Giant. Other than a few exceptions like Twinkie the Kid, or the McNugget Buddies anthropomorphic food trying to get you to eat it (or not in some cases) is generally shied away from.

Now the M&M characters first appeared in the 60s, and I know that this reference wasn't written until 1980 but doesn't the whole thing smack  a bit too much like that great scene in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe where they Meet the Meat (watch the clip on YouTube here). This is either some very clever or some very morbid marketing at work. But what really amazes me most is that no one seems to notice it?!

Although there is definitely a weird morbidity to the entire prospect, the awesome thing is that there's no denying how effective these little guys are! I'm not here to regurgitate Wikipedia to you, there is more than enough info there to keep you occupied, but I do want to say that the very fact that these guys exist, and that they are so great at keeping me interested in M&Ms is a real testament to an enduring concept, and some great marketing execution.

And since the late mid 90s these characters have also really evolved into something fascinating that no other candy company can claim. They are unique as candy mascots that are recognized all over the world. they also have distinct personalities, an basic character plot lines in their specific ads. And because (basically) each one is associated with a specific flavor of the candy, fans can have their favorites. People connect with them, and care about them. That is branding gold and something you have to commend.

Some of my fondest memories from being a kid are browsing through my comic books, or flipping the tv on and watching the great advertising.  Seriously, I really have always loved good advertizing. And M&M ads were, and still are always a ton of fun.

Next time we'll get more into the advertizing specifically, but I thought it best to start with the real heart of the ads first. These guys are what makes the M&M ads tick, and I'm very glad they're around.

Check out even more on the M&Ms with these reviews:
M&Ms Peanut review
M&Ms Coconut review
M&Ms Mint review
M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint review