The majority of us in the UK will remember the controversial 2002 campaign for the chunky, ‘King size, not Queen sized’ Yorkie chocolate bar. This campaign’s primary slogan stated daringly: ‘It’s Not For Girls’.
My younger brothers found the campaign a great novelty and drew amusement by purposefully eating the blue-wrapped bar with over-exaggerated pleasure while simultaneously boasting and proclaiming that because I was a girl, I wasn’t allowed to consume the chocolate. Be it petty child-like banter on display, it was clear that the story ran much deeper. Nestle (the company that makes the candy bar) pretty clearly implied through their slogans that women are inferior, if only to persuade males (in particular young male children) to purchase a chocolate bar.
The overall reaction to the campaign was mixed, but when representatives responsible for advertising the chocolate bar began handing out bars exclusively to men in Liverpool City Centre, it was (rightfully) seen as a discriminatory act. The representatives were banned by the council following a complaint from a female councillor, despite arguing that the campaign was meant to be ‘tongue-in-cheek’.
This incidence seems to beg the question as to where the line is drawn between a campaign that’s supposed to be humorous and an act that implies gender inferiority and inequality. Nestle’s decision for the campaign was based on the reasoning that in a current world of supposed growing female dominance, men didn’t have much that they could ‘claim as their own.’ So this chocolate bar was supposed to be gender-specific, which in turn brought the argument that it was repressive of the equality that women have worked hard for through the ages.
I bought a three bar Yorkie multipack recently, after a lengthy gap between my last purchase of the brand due to its sexist turn. On view, I realised that there were no signs of any sexism present. The ‘O’ — which I recollected as being depicted as a ‘no-go’ road sign with a female symbol within it (see image above) — had been replaced with a regular ‘O’ written in the same bright orange font as the rest of the word. The usually boldly emblazoned slogan had been removed on both the individual bars and the exterior multipack packaging. I issued a Google search and learned that there had been no comment by manufacturers regarding the changes in packaging designs or even the chocolate bars’ evidently shifted morals and ideology.
Therefore, it seems apparent that Nestle has changed their opinion regarding the standing of women in today’s chocolate-purchasing society and it seems that once more, women have been granted the approval to buy and consume Yorkie chocolate bars, without judgement, to their heart’s content! And thank God for that.