10/8/14

Aero Bar - Less is more.

When the Phil Are GO! Junior Food and Ingestibles Correspondent dropped this ad on my desk, I barked out a laugh and patted him on the head. First, because his hair feels like a puppy, but second, because I had forgotten about Choco'Lite candy bars, from 1975. More on that later.


If there's one thing we all love, it's getting less for our money, right? Guess who had the idea of a chocolate bar full of air bubbles. Go on and guess who looked at a perfectly good chocolate bar and thought "Something's wrong here. There's too much chocolate in it." It sure as hell wasn't a consumer.

Enter the foamed chocolate bar. This 1951 ad is for Rowntrees Aero, which is a British candy bar, apparently marketed primarily to the Virgin Mary all over England. Please make you own lame puns about "holy" candy.

Foamed chocolate is that greatest of all food manufacturer's dreams - selling you air for the same price as actual product. See, if you whip the chocolate full of air bubbles and then pour the mold, you can use words like "light" and "delicate", all while charging the same price... or maybe even a little more. Nothing could be better. It's a very profitable idea that gently screws your customer in a light, delicate way.

A quick check on Amazon shows a couple of different candy bars like this. You can buy regular Hershey bars on Amazon all day long for 46¢ per ounce. Let's find some foamy options.

Hershey's Air Delight. 64¢ per ounce. Hershey's would be truly delighted if you're dumb enough to buy this.
Hey! Aero bars are still around! Looks like Nestle bought them out. If you want these, you'll have to import them from England , and it'll cost you $1.30 per ounce, luv. In both cases, the art on the wrapper is careful to show you lots of chocolate spheres, as if it's really important to Hershey's that you see what they're taking away from you. 




Here's the commercial I remember seeing on TV in The Seventies. The girl reeeeally seems to like Choco'Lite. Maybe a little too much. Careful, miss. What would Mary think?






2 comments:

Jack said...

Honestly, the Nestle Aero is pretty good - I purchased one as a lark since they are so British...(read unusual). Now if they can fill the little air bubbles with peanut butter.....

PhilAreGo@gmail.com said...

Of course Aero bars are good. Chocolate is good. What else is good, is paying by weight, not volume. The peanut butter bubble trick sounds like a nice apology for trying to sell you air for the price of chocolate for fifty years. I'd try a chocolate bar with peanut butter bubbles in it.

Thanks for reading, guys!

[-Mgmt.]

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