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".

When my daughter was a small child, she genuinely thought that girls were not allowed to eat Yorkie bars (I didn't find this out though until she was an adult).

Can you even by it anymore, I haven't seen it for years?

I boycotted them as the slogan pissed me off so much; rather to my sorrow as I used to love a Yorkie. Now they are made from palm oil and taste vile anyway.

I remember from the 70s and 80s ads like these for things. The yorkie ones didnt put me off, I thought they were funny although I couldnt actually afford yorkie bars!

I felt uncomfortable at the flake type adverts.

I dont agree that current chocolate ads were women eat chocolate on their own and from a secret box show eating disordered eating or show women shouldnt enjoy food, what on earth?

@Plexie

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'.

Both also do diet versions and I still have no idea what the difference is between diet and max/zero you read the ingredients and its all the same.

I still dont understand why coke dont do a caffeine free version thats full sugar, I would buy it caffeine makes my anxierty worse, I dont buy diet drinks

I liked them as a teenager and the advertising had no impact on me one way on another. Sadly they have long since changed the recipe and I haven't bought one for years.

I remember the advert as a child. I also remember thinking that if the chocolate wasn't for me, then my money wasn't for them. I couldn't tell you what they taste like, as I've never bought one.

I'm confused, I always thought the advert was making fun of misogyny, like pointing how stupid it was to say that something was only for girls. I never thought they meant literally, or have I missed something?

My grandad used to buy Yorkie chocolate. We'd eat it together and chuckle at how it wasn't for girls but I was still eating it. I grew up thinking I could do anything a boy could do. (Not just because of the chocolate!) But then I grew up in a time when sparkly pink glittery things for girls wasn't really a thing. I wore denim dungarees and stripy tops in primary colours, and ate chocolate that I was told was for truck drivers, while never doubting for a minute I was a girl. Maybe it was reverse psychology.

I couldn't care less about it, it's a joke.

I ate them and didnt really care/think about the slogan

This was ‘innocent’ in comparison to today’s world. I liked an occasional Yorkie bar but wasn’t interested once they changed to this ad from the trucker one. I identified with flake.

I definitely saw it as a piss take and it didn't put me off buying them.
However I do vividly recall writing to Iceland when I was a child to complain about their crappy gender stereotyping adverts.

@SamphiretheStickerist

Back when we were all watching Smokie and The Bandit, singing along to Convoy on TOTTP, this worked really well. A chunky chocolate bars for lorry drivers.

But, somewhat to my surprise, that was almost 50 years ago! Times have changed 🙂

I remember Convoy and the truck drivers! As a young girl I loved it all and even got a huge dump truck for Christmas. God knows what would be made of that nowadays.

OMG, some times I really get amazed at how many stupid people there are in the UK!
Was this campaign really targeting Male Truck drivers (about 0.0001% of the population) and telling 50% of population not to buy it.
Of course not, but they totally failed to understand just how many people suffer from low IQ and would actually think this was what they were doing.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the average person

thanks for your insight steve! we'd never have worked that out without you (this thread is ancient, did you not read the timestamps?)

Flake was Sexual with half naked women in baths. Milk try was pretty sexual as well, not sure about the "break into someones house and leave chocolate thing"

But women who did not drive trucks took offence as thought advert was saying they could not buy it...did they also think they needed to be naked in a bath to eat a flake, or a stalker breaking into your house with chocolates was OK?

@steve8467 these are some very old chocolate based opinions. What do you think about Dubai chocolate?

what's your aim here, Steve? are you here to educate us airheads about chocolate advertising or something?

It was definitely a joke, and waaay less offensive than the Flake ads that basically sold them on the basis of showing a woman eating chocolate as if she was giving a blow job.

Afaik, the people who thought the advert up were responding to some focus group stuff that indicated a lot of men saw chocolate as being marketed for women. But it worked on two levels: on the one hand it was targeted at men, as an antidote to all the ads that presented chocolate consumption as female. On the other hand it was targeted at everyone, because it was a laugh that everyone enjoyed.

TLDR: Chocolate ads were already sexist. The Yorkie ads just made a joke of the sexism

Yorkie tasted bad, as I remember, but I loved the hard work of snapping it in my mouth. Does it still give that lovely firm resistance, or has it gone soft like other chocolate bars?

Quick question Steve, do you think the innuendo in Flake ads was aimed at women? Or did you never pick up a newspaper or hear a comedy routine at any point during the 80s and early 90s?

I hope @steve8467 hasn't been composing that riposte in the nearly four years since everyone else lost interest in this thread 😕

Composed it just for you, & it peaked your interest enough to reply😀

Piqued my curiosity but was disappointing..