British candy maker Cadbury recently marketed its Freddo Treasures chocolates with an advertising campaign that urged consumers to "grab your metal detector and go hunting for Roman riches" and other artifacts at specific sites around Britain and Ireland.
"Are you willing to get your hands dirty to discover more?" the website asked, effectively comparing the act of opening a box of chocolates to searching for ancient relics. At certain sites, the ad campaign said, "the treasure's fair game."
Archaeologists and museum curators were quick to object.
Ian Trumble, a curator of archaeology, Egyptology and world cultures at Bolton Museum in northern England, wrote on Twitter over the weekend that the marketing effort was "quite possibly the most shocking, ill-advised & irresponsible 'heritage engagement' campaigns" he had ever seen. Cadbury's pitch, he added, "actively promotes the gleeful destruction of archaeological sites and undermines years of public heritage education."
In an interview Monday, he expanded on his objections, saying that anyone engaging in a real-life game of Tomb Raider in many parts of the British Isles would be doing something "unquestionably illegal." On Twitter, the Historic England government body echoed his stance, citing "strict rules that protect England's archaeological heritage."
The misstep suggests Cadbury's marketing department has not learned from other companies' botched attempts at being clever:
• The Daily Show mocked Delta Air Lines this year after passengers complained they had been given napkins that encouraged them to flirt with other travelers. On one side, the napkins, produced in a partnership with Diet Coke, said: "Be a little old school, write down your number and give it to your plane crush. You never know." On the other, they said: "Because you're on a plane full of interesting people and hey ... you never know."
• Department store shoppers in Britain did not appreciate a display ad for Benefit Cosmetics' Boi-ing product, which encouraged teen girls to "skip class, not concealer." The company apologized on Twitter, saying that it valued "all levels of education."
• An ad in the Bloomingdale's 2015 holiday catalog showed a man looking at a woman who was gazing away from him. The message: "Spike your best friend's eggnog when they're not looking." Inundated with claims that the ad promoted date rape, the retailer apologized and said the ad was "inappropriate and in poor taste."
Mondelez International, which owns Cadbury, said in a statement that it had not meant "to encourage anyone to break existing regulations regarding the discovery of new archaeological artifacts." The company said it had taken down the website and was working on "directing families to museums where existing treasures can be found."
Business on 03/19/2019