The link between going to the cinema and eating your body weight in candy is fairly well known. If you live in the USA you probably enjoy a rom-com with milk duds or Mike and Ike's, here you are more likely to go for Malteasers or Minstrels. Well known makers of chocolate like Cadbury's and Galaxy are household names and their products famous. They even have their own facebook pages!
At a recent check Minstrels facebook group had 358,916 members with 2932 people talking about them Cadburys combined pages rack up more than 3.5million members!
Every summer has its must see movie and as summer 2008 commenced a chick flick which was much awaited opened in cinemas. There was such an air of anticipation and hype that promoters and marketers would have been fools to ignore the hungry audience. So with a clear link between candy and movies, not to mention the one between women and chocolate, chocolate company A decided to do some promotion.
The opening of the movie unfortunately did not coincide with any new product launches so an old but popular one was to be used. This was how I found myself in Scotland's least swanky cinema in a brown polyester catsuit on the hottest day of the year. After putting 1 tiny morsel into tiny plastic cups-made way more fiddly by the fact the chocolate was starting to melt as I worked- they were transfered onto a faux chocolate tray. I then had to wander around the foyer offering the 'treat' (I use the term loosely as by now the chocolate was almost molten in the unairconditioned cinema) to the groups of women. As I offered them a cup I had been instructed to engage with them asking them if they had tried product x.
As I wandered around handing out the testers peoples expressions ranged from confusion 'Is this a new version?' 'no', to mild annoyance 'How could we not have heard of product x?'. Most people looked at me as though I had emerged from a cave or a parallel universe. People had most definately heard of confectionery, especially chocolate all the evidence pointed that way. The strange thing was people took them, ate them and then I heard multiple people saying to friends 'this is really nice'. Was it that they had just rememebered that they enjoyed the product, maybe the softened form tasted better, or perhaps the excitement of the occasion heightened their enjoyment. This could be a potential study into human behaviour, but sadly there would have been no further payment had I conducted this study on the company's behalf.
As the women filed into the cinema, giggling and smuggling pre mixed cans of cocktails I retreated with the empty plastic cups. The cinema manager- he can't have been older than 14, ok maybe 18-came through to the staff area. I was just about to open the bin lid to dispose of the plastic in a manner which I deemed to be responsible when he motioned for me to stop. I assumed they had some recyling incentive as many businesses have, but no. This jobsworth teen wanted me to wash and individually dry the cheap plastic thimbles in order for them to be used again in the future! I inwardly groaned but as an outsider representing another company I headed for the sink. 20 cups washed and 10minutes of my life that I will never get back into the task, his equally pedantic co-worker (also health and safety guy) popped over. He needed to check I had received the health and safety brief for the 'kitchen' area. As I furtively shook my head he looked terrified and horrified all at once and instantly led me away from the sink. Thank god for the world in which health and safety has gone mad.
I imagine the cups were thrown away in the end, or some poor,underpaid saturday employee was left with the remainder to wash.
Another day another dollar I say. :-)
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