This is one of a large collection of films made by Rowntree’s of York (now Nestlé).  Most of the films came via the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, based at the University of York.  Other films have come from different sources, such as Ken Clough, a former engineering designer for Rowntree who filmed many of their manufacturing processes.  The vast bulk of the films are adverts for their confectionary products: including Rolo, Black Magic, Toffee Crisp, Smarties, Milky Bar,...

This is one of a large collection of films made by Rowntree’s of York (now Nestlé).  Most of the films came via the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, based at the University of York.  Other films have come from different sources, such as Ken Clough, a former engineering designer for Rowntree who filmed many of their manufacturing processes.  The vast bulk of the films are adverts for their confectionary products: including Rolo, Black Magic, Toffee Crisp, Smarties, Milky Bar, KitKat, Dairy box and many other brands made between 1929 and 1990.  The earliest one of the adverts is Mr York of York, Yorks, the first animated advertisement to be made, in 1929, with synchronised sound - also online.  For an overview of Rowntree's, chocolate and advertising see the Context for Tokens (1962-63).  For an overview of the Rowntree’s business see After Eight Adverts (1962).

Yorkie was introduced in 1976 as a way into the Cadbury dominated ‘block market’.   The man who devised the Yorkie (and also Lion bar), Eric Nicoli, had a successful career in the food industry before later becoming head of EMI music.  In an interview with the Guardian he states that, "I was 26 when Yorkie was launched . . . The chunky chocolate block was so superior because Cadbury's had slimmed down their blocks to cope with the rising cost of cocoa. Before long, Rowntree's Yorkie had gone from zero to 45% of the market while Cadbury's share had fallen from 80% to 35%."  It is claimed that they used cheap cocoa from Rowntree’s favourable futures market.  It was voted best new product of the 1970s by the grocery retail trade and it was estimated that 400 bars were eaten each minute of the year.

There were many adverts featuring a trucker over a 16 year period between 1976 and 1992, when they ceased.  During that time a number of actors were used.  Unfortunately we haven’t been able to identify the name of the actor in this commercial.  Possibly the first, Martin Fisk, did in fact work for Rowntree Mackintosh as a truck driver, when they were being manufactured in the former Mackintosh’s Norwich factory – he lived in Sussex.  But, according to a report from the York Press, ‘his good looks provoked such a flow of fan mail including offers of marriage that he just had to go. A spokesman for Rowntree Mackintosh explained: "It was felt that the personality was becoming stronger than the product."  He was subsequently dismissed.  Someone on YouTube claims that he “was later involved in the Winter of Discontent, blockading petrol stations and supermarkets.”  Whatever the truth of this (YouTube is hardly a reliable source), he went on to make a decent acting career, appearing in Miss Marple, The Sweeney , The New Avengers and Dr Who among many other programmes. 

The man they got to replace him, Jerry Judge, was found via the Ugly Model Agency!  Another actor who appeared in the ads in the 1980s, Stuart Mungall, has more recently been in the news when he was given a 12-month suspended sentence after admitting killing his wheelchair-bound wife, Joan, in an act of mercy.

The YFA has several takes of the ads with Martin Fisk driving his Daf truck over the Severn Bridge.   Each of these has a different version of the theme song, Rollin On.  One of the bands that recorded it, Cirrus, released it on Jet Records in 1978, reaching number 62 in the charts.  The ads become quite popular, with Not the Nine O’clock News famously doing a spoof, ‘I like trucking’, in 1980.  They also spawned toy lorries with the Yorkie bar logo made by Corgi.

Much has been made of the macho appeal of the adverts, although they can be seen as parodies of typical macho images.  The macho appeal was accentuated when on Easter Monday, April 1, 2002, the bar was re-launched, after a seven year gap, with a £3.5m advertising campaign, under the slogan, "Yorkie, it's not for girls".  The ad that opened the new campaign is described thus: ‘[it] shows a woman posing as a man in a store with the aim of buying a Yorkie bar. The shopkeeper isn't convinced and proceeds to test her 'masculinity' by asking her, among other things, to explain the off-side rule. He also tries to scare her with a toy spider.  The woman remains unruffled until the shopkeeper comments on her blue eyes. She falls for the age-old compliment at which point the shopkeeper's suspicions are confirmed.’ (References)  Other aspects of the marketing campaign included three different billboard and magazine ads featuring the slogans, "Don't feed the birds", "Not available in pink" and "King size not queen size".

Andrew Harrison, Marketing Director at Nestle Rowntree, is quoted as saying: "We needed to take a stand for the British bloke and reclaim some things in his life, starting with his chocolate."  The whole campaign was created by the same agency that made the original trucker adverts, J Walter Thompson.  He echoed Harrison’s view: "Most men these days feel as if the world is changing around them and it has become less and less politically correct to have anything that is only for males.  It used to be that men had some areas of their life that were just for them and that was OK.  No one cared and most people recognised that men needed places to be, in a simple sense, men.  Yorkie feels that this is an important element of men's happiness and is starting the reclaiming process of making a particular chocolate just for men."

Needless to say there were complaints that this was sexist – 97 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority.  The response to this was a special edition just for girls was produced in 2006, wrapped in pink – which must have put paid to any more feminist objections.  It is not easy to know what to make of all of this, though doubtless men are pleased to have their very own chocolate bar which they can eat without feeling girlie.  Yet there are reports that some females, in perverse acts of rebellion, do buy Yorkie.  Marketing is a huge business, and a huge amount of money goes into psychological research into ‘perception management’; so perhaps it is all a master plan of reverse psychology.

References

Paul Crystal and Joe Dickinson, A History of Chocolate in York, Remember When (Pen & Sword Books), 2012.
Eric Nicoli: Music boss who went from choc to rock
Nestle bans women from Yorkie bars, Guardian
ADWATCH: Nestle gives Yorkie back to the lads
Catherine Redfern, Not for Girls? The Yorkie and Echo Adverts
The Press, Way we were