Bite It and Believe It

I had the fortune to eat a newly-relaunched Wispa today. It was delicious - and also, for people like me who care about this kind of thing, also had beautiful, simple packaging.

But - as you can see from Cadbury's site - the angle they're going for on this is "Back to the 80s". And the slogan on the case is "Some things are best left in the 80s. This isn't one of them." Which would be fine... except that Wispa was discontinued in 2003. That's 2003, people. Only four years ago. Sure, the bar was introduced nationally in 1983, but the whole retro thing doesn't work for a product that was only discontinued this decade, does it?

Don't get me wrong - I love 80s retro stuff. (Mainly because I never grew out of most of it anyway.) But only when it's appropriate. With this, they've managed to taint the well-deserved relaunch of an excellent choccie bar with, frankly, a faintly desperate air of attempting to cash in on the zeitgeist.

Weak.

About this entry

By John Hoare
Posted on Tuesday, October 02 2007 @ 5:20 pm
Categorised in Net
Tagged with wispa, cadbury
9 comments

Comments

Whoa!

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=21156

Now on to the Wispa... totally agree. The Wispa was there when I was a child and that was in the 90s (1988-). It has nothing do with the eighties for me, the packaging seems timeless rather than fashionably dated and it is just a desperate ploy. Glad they're back though.

By Rad
October 02, 2007 @ 5:53 pm

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No the 2003 packaging was rubbish compared.

By 'nathon
October 02, 2007 @ 8:11 pm

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I bought one of these yesterday! I had a little check and the wrapping is the same colouring as the 80s version, but with the font of the 2003 version.

80s version: http://www.dezzign.co.uk/WISPA.gif
Later packaging (not sure when): http://www.thumbless.co.uk/Wispa02.jpg
Pack of 4, similar time (not sure when): http://www.lightstraw.co.uk/faded/wispa1a.jpg
Relaunched version: http://www.talkingretail.com/a/main/063D8AEA-1B92-11D9-A258-B96F2D727A86/A7E96EA8-4106-11DC-829F-3626640B077D/517E3652-4B42-11DC-B59F-3BF4630B077D.jpg

By Entourage
October 04, 2007 @ 7:23 pm

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That's because just about EVERYTHING has to be 'retro' '70s or '80s now in order to appear 'cool'.

By performingmonkey
October 04, 2007 @ 8:19 pm

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I have an afirmity for 80s stuff, but I too never saw Wispas as 80s stuff for reasons you all said.

By MJN SEIFER
October 06, 2007 @ 8:45 pm

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> I have an afirmity

affinity?

By Ghastforth
October 06, 2007 @ 8:52 pm