{"id":9407,"date":"2013-03-21T18:20:51","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T22:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=9407"},"modified":"2013-03-21T19:38:44","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T23:38:44","slug":"top-secret-when-hershey-of-canada-let-consumers-name-a-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=9407","title":{"rendered":"Top Secret! When Hershey of Canada let Consumers Name a Bar!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CC_Hershey<\/p>\n

Checking my files and my memories of various candy promotions, I can’t recall any instance of a major candy company letting consumers vie for a chance to name a bar.\u00a0 But sometime around the year 2000, that’s just what Hershey of Canada did with an unnamed bar that was at least temporarily called Top Secret.<\/p>\n

I have both the “Top Secret” wrapper in my collection as well as one that came out after the contest winner was chosen and the bar was officially named.\u00a0\u00a0 Typically, when there’s any kind of contest or sweepstakes having to do with a candy or chocolate bar, there are expiration dates included on the wrapper.\u00a0 It’s great information to be able to have, as so many vintage wrappers didn’t typically have “Best By” dates on them.\u00a0\u00a0 But in the case of Hershey’s Top Secret promotion, there was no expiration date, merely directions on where to find contest information.\u00a0 It would seem even the contest details were top secret.<\/p>\n

So I can’t tell you too much about the promotion other than that it did occur, because I have the wrappers to prove it.\u00a0 So here they are.<\/p>\n

\"Canada

Canada – Hershey – Top Secret – chocolate candy bar wrapper – circa 2000<\/p><\/div>\n

The winning name would be chosen by Kyle Cyr of Hull, Quebec and his name (and hometown) would be printed on the wrapper that featured the bar name he chose; Hershey Avalanche:<\/p>\n

\"Canada

Canada – Hershey – Avalanche – chocolate candy bar wrapper – circa 2000<\/p><\/div>\n

[Edit:\u00a0 After posting today’s article, eagle eyed CollectingCandy.com reader Frank Forrester searched the Internet Wayback Machine and discovered the original promotion page for Hershey’s Top Secret from the MuchMusic site.\u00a0 Special thanks go out to Frank, and because of his research, I can now include this screenshot of that page in today’s post.]<\/p>\n

\"MuchMusic

MuchMusic webpage for Hershey Top Secret promotion – May 2000<\/p><\/div>\n

The original page featured an animated GIF, and fortunately I was able to capture that as well… so here is the original animation.<\/p>\n

\"hersheys\"<\/p>\n

So that’s what I know about Hershey’s Top Secret promotion and the Avalanche bar it named.\u00a0 As I said, it’s the only instance I know of a major candy manufacturer asking consumers to name a bar for them, which makes it a pretty significant piece of confectionery history in my book.\u00a0 And that’s everything for today.<\/p>\n

See you next time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Checking my files and my memories of various candy promotions, I can’t recall any instance of a major candy company letting consumers vie for a chance to name a bar.\u00a0 But sometime around the year 2000, that’s just what Hershey … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,68,56,134],"tags":[67,1210,321,316,328,351,332,14,324,78,333,793,1218,21,795,794,15,348,11],"class_list":["post-9407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1990s","category-canadian","category-chocolate-2","category-hershey","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-candy-collecting","tag-candy-collection","tag-candy-collector","tag-candy-wrapper-collection","tag-candy-wrapper-collector","tag-collectible","tag-collecting-candy","tag-confectionery","tag-confections","tag-contest","tag-hershey","tag-packaging","tag-promotion","tag-sweepstakes","tag-sweets","tag-vintage-candy-wrapper","tag-wrapper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2aFGk-2rJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9407"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9426,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9407\/revisions\/9426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}