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When nostalgia rules: the Klondike story
Why is a block of ice cream with a chocolate shell - and without a stick - still popular, nearly a century after it was launched?
The answer to that question is easy. Pure nostalgia. Add to that constant innovation and a winner is here to stay.
It all started around 1922 because ice cream impresario Chester Isaly was angry at the appearance of the Eskimo Pie, a chocolate-dipped ice cream bar on a stick introduced by his competitor Christian Kent Nelson in Ohio. Isaly, who owned the extremely popular Isaly’s dairy and ice cream shops in Pennsylvania and Ohio, wanted to hit his competitor where it hurt.
He took a huge hunk of vanilla ice cream, dunked it in Swiss milk chocolate and proclaimed that the “adult” ice cream bar needed no stick. The Isalys chose an even chillier name: Klondike, the river in Canada’s Yukon Territory – also the site of the Great Yukon Gold Rush. Isaly struck gold and a classic was born.
If Klondike is popular, it’s marketing even more so. The ditty, “What Would You Do for a Klondike Bar?”, which was released 35 years ago, came in at No. 3 last year on YouGov’s survey of most-liked commercial jingles. Recently, however, Klondike shelved the song in favour of a human love story - crafted by the Via Agency - between a Klondike and various tall and tasty candy bars, whose liaisons produce a host of exotic offspring.
Klondike is owned by Unilever now.