Yorkie its not for girls.

[VelvetChairGirl]

I think this would be the right board for this, I am currently discussing the old Yorkie chocolate bar advertising on FB.

I have never actually eaten one, I wouldn't buy one because of the slogan and my mother never bought any either so no man or woman in the house ate them as she did all the shopping.

someone else on FB thinks it was a smart marketing strategy, reverse psychology, getting women to go "screw you I can eat any chocolate I want" and buying more as a result then they would otherwise.

I am curious if ladies here were more "screw you I'll take my money elsewhere" or "screw you I'll buy whatever I like".

DH & I were just talking about the Yorkie ad the other day, can’t see an ad coming out like that in these times, unless reversed.

I do think it was more of a piss-take towards men tbh -of course they are so "Macho" and insecure that they need a chocolate bar that isn't at all for girls.

I used to live on them! As a junior doc, working 100 hour weeks, I would take three Yorkie bars into the operating theatre with me, and eat my way through them during endless emergency sessions. I wasn’t really aware of any advertising campaigns - I would fall asleep within 5 minutes of switching the tv on in those days.

It was developed as a product for men. That's why it was marketed at men. It wasn't that they created the bar and then came up with the idea to make it appeal to men. It's true now, and was more so back then, that if something seems to be aimed at women it puts men off buying it. There were plenty of chocolate products designed for wider appeal. It's exploited a gap in the market at the time.

It was very cheap basic clunky chocolate.

It was definitely aimed at bloke truck drivers.

I ate them, and I remember picking them just to spite a group of boys who insisted I wasn’t allowed to eat them.

Made them taste a whole lot better too.

someone else on FB thinks it was a smart marketing strategy, reverse psychology, getting women to go "screw you I can eat any chocolate I want" and buying more as a result then they would otherwise.

I fell into this camp, used to love Yorkie Bars and was like '' fuck you, I won't do as you tell me.. ''

I thought it was a really mean spirited way to market to men - not a positive "Hey men, you'll like this!" but a "Fuck off girls". I didn't buy any once that approach started. I was in my 30s by then, though. If I'd been a teenager at the time it might have convinced me to buy it to spite them .

It was dSis’s favourite chocolate. I grew up with 2 brothers and a sister. Sexism didn’t stand a chance in our house.

Good rich and thick
A milk chocolate brick

Can’t remember the rest.

I definitely was more annoyed about Flora being the margarine for men.

I bought them (not now it's palm oil rubbish). I always thought it was meant in a jokey way - they physically couldn't stop women buying it after all. The joke being that chocolate isn't really meant for one sex over the other, and poking fun at guys who had to be seen buying "manly" things.

I also couldn't be too fussed if it was aimed for men, wouldn't stop me buying it if I liked it. There's always a particular target audience for certain products, doesn't mean others won't or can't buy it. It's useful and profitable to advertise to the people who at most likely going to buy the bloody things. I use men's razors because they're cheaper and not fluorescent pink for example.

It's also why I'm against period products avoiding using "women" in their advertising. Just because it says women on it doesn't mean you can't use it if you have need of it. It is important to capture your target audience though.

Giving it more space in my head than it ever deserved, the image of how chocolate was supposed to be eaten was very sexualised - woman naked in bath, bits over her lips to be licked off, etc, man just taking a bite like he was Henry VIII with a roasted deer leg.

All perpetuating the idea that women can't just eat food, they have to do it in a performatively feminine and sexually appealing to men way.

Even recently, there's the adverts with women hiding chocolate in a special box to be eaten in secret so nobody sees them - evoking both eating disorder behaviour and the sexist notion that women shouldn't be seen to enjoy food.

An ex absolutely believed all that shite. Utterly abusive, utterly a product of the misogyny that was harnessed to make millions all around him from infancy. He's probably giving some poor woman a hard time right for not cutting lettuce leaves into tiny pieces and chewing them 300 times before declaring that she's simply full up and can't possibly manage more than a teaspoon of plain boiled chicken.

And yes, he would be angry at the idea of a woman buying a Yorkie Bar, as it would suggest that she was trying to be a man - so it's not harmless fun. It helped create and perpetuate the misogyny.

It’s no Toboblorone though, is it?

Mmmm Toboblorone.

I thought it was quite funny, and I love a biscuit and raisin one to this day.

@ChiefInspectorParker

I thought it was bullshit, but I’ve boycotted Nestle for as long as I can remember anyway.

I don’t like Flakes either as it happens.

Does anyone remember a chocolate selection called Spartan? I think it was dark chocolate with hard centres. Very sophisticated !!

flakes are shit now anyway along with the rest of cadburys.

I like Marabou best.

I was a teenager at the time and thought it was funny. But I also thought sexism was a thing of the past until I was early 20s so I’m not sure my judgement from that time was particularly good!

Am I imagining that there was a Yorkie with whole toasted almonds in it in the mid-1980s? I seem to remember it being a favourite of mine.

The overtly sexy girly adverts for Cadbury's Caramel and Flake gave me the shudders, but the Yorkie "not for girls" adverts just made me think, "Don't be so stupid, it's just chocolate," and I don't think it changed my chocolate eating behaviour.

www.businessinsider.com/the-story-behind-the-yorkie-chocolate-bar-2016-3?r=US&IR=T

interesting time line, you cant appeal to men unless you insult women, to get the point across.

@FacebookPhotos

I was a teenager at the time and thought it was funny. But I also thought sexism was a thing of the past until I was early 20s so I’m not sure my judgement from that time was particularly good!

early 20s wow you escaped for a long time, I realised it as a toddler in nursery. girls had to play on one side of the room (we even had a split colour carpet) with the play kitchen complete with ironing board, washing machine and the baby dolls with cots etc, boys had to play on the other side with the water table and lego.

and never shall they mix, the staff spent all day picking kids up from the other side and dumping them back in their side, saying things like "thats not for you".

@SilverGlassHare

Yeah, I was “Fuck you if you don’t want my ‘girl’ money, I’ll buy some other brand.” Never had a Yorkie, never will.

Same here.

early 20s wow you escaped for a long time, I realised it as a toddler in nursery. girls had to play on one side of the room (we even had a split colour carpet) with the play kitchen complete with ironing board, washing machine and the baby dolls with cots etc, boys had to play on the other side with the water table and lego.

and never shall they mix, the staff spent all day picking kids up from the other side and dumping them back in their side, saying things like "thats not for you".

Wow. I'm 26 and it's certainly not done like that anymore. Or at least not when I went to school

I always assumed it was marketing aimed at men and to this day I've rarely eaten a Yorkie (despite having consumed several tonnes of chocolate over my lifetime). The Cadbury's Flake adverts in particular were very 'womanly' and that wouldn't have appealed to many men.

I don't think times have changed much: Pepsi apparently used the name 'Pepsi Max' for one of their sugar-free colas to avoid using the word 'diet' because that doesn't appeal to men. I assume Coca-Cola made a similar choice with 'Coke Zero'.

Horrible-tasting chocolate. I last had one well over ten years ago and possibly closer to twenty, and it was unpleasant. Are they even worse now or were Yorkies an early example of the switch to palm oil?

I never paid attention to the slogan. Ads at the time were filled with sexist drivel that was far more insidious.

the staff spent all day picking kids up from the other side and dumping them back in their side, saying things like "thats not for you".

Never experienced this, but I remember finding something unfair because of sexism for the first time at school. We made pirate costumes out of crepe one year, which was amazing because I was obsessed with all things piratey, so really excited when the crepe, scissors and glue came out again the following year. Only to be told that the boys would be pirates and the girls gypsies (imagine that happening today). I asked if I could also be a pirate and was firmly told I could not!