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I Was Wrong: Hershey's Ice Breakers Are Brilliant

I momentarily lost sight of my sense of humor and my sense of marketing. My post about Hershey's Ice Breakers, which cops and some parent groups say look like nickel bags of heroin or coke, was wrong. Hershey's is not cracked. Their strategy is, in fact, crystal clear.

"Hershey's ought to admit that Ice Breakers are an unfortunate mistake and eat the loss," I said, rather dimly. But, as Shrivel pointed out in the comments, kids are keen on shocking unsuspecting parents by appearing to be doing something illicit.

One of my favorite childhood pranks was one my brother played on our parents. He put a "joint" made with pencil shavings, in his desk drawer in his room. Our parents found it and did the obligatory flipout. This stunt proved we knew they spied on us, and gave us all a good giggle.

With the same reasoning, and then some, I'm sure there are plenty of kids out there who'll love to flip their parents out with Ice Breakers.

And wouldn't it really be fun to have a teacher confiscate your breath mints? The answer's yes if you're a kid. How could I forget.

So Hershey's should enjoy the attention. I suspect they knew exactly what they were doing.

Bonus Link : Reefer Madness.

Categories: Peer to peer

BL Ochman | Dec 5 07 2:26 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Weather Hershey knew what they where doing or not and I believe the whole lot of them would have a hard time operating a lemonade stand without a 5 year old`s help . For a family oriented company such as Hershey to even have their name associated with drugs is a travesty to Milton Hershey's legacy this man built something from nothing , something that was good and has lasted nearly 110years and these morons who are now operating Hershey are slowly destroying this company only to increase their own personal wealth, it`s sickening . If the only way Hershey can market their products is to make them look like crack cocaine or some other form of drugs then they might as well pack it up right now because their sales will continue to fall as many consumers will never touch their products again...

Posted by: brodie at December 5, 2007 11:31 PM

And now the product is being pulled from shelves out of criticism over their resemblance to street drugs.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/24/business/main3750712.shtml

have no fear, there's still Love Blow on sale in the USA and UK
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=514634&in_page_id=181

Posted by: zak at February 15, 2008 3:33 PM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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