Man of Steel, the latest cinematic interpretation of DC Comics’ Superman premiered at #1 in theaters over this past weekend. It made me realize this would be a great time to do a Superman-related post. So today I’d like to talk about a pair of promotions Nestle did around the time of the first Christopher Reeve Superman film.
In 1978, Warner Brothers released Superman: The Movie starring Christopher Reeve. While Superman had long been a popular character for licensed products, the film put things into overdrive.
The Nestle candy company quickly jumped on board and in 1979 they offered a mail-away promotion for a Superman ring. The offer appeared on the wrappers of four of their biggest sellers; Nestle Crunch, Choco’lite, $100,000 bar, and Nestle Milk Chocolate. Here is what one of the in-store mail-away coupons looked like:
Nestle – candy bar mail-away Superman Ring offer coupon-flyer – 1979
The wrappers with the offer printed on them are pictured on that coupon. I have three of the four that I can show you today:
Nestle – Milk Chocolate bar wrapper – Superman Ring mail-away offer – 1979
Nestle – $100,000 chocolate bar wrapper – Superman Ring mail-away offer – 1979
Nestle – Crunch chocolate bar wrapper – Superman Ring mail-away offer – 1979
[Somewhere in my files, I know I’ve got one of the actual mail-away rings, but I didn’t have time to search for it this weekend.]
Though my documentation on it is not as clear, Nestle did at least one other Superman-related promotion during this period (and it appears to have preceded the mail-away ring promo) – this time for a mail-away Superman t-shirt.
I have a partial newspaper clipping for the promotion as well as a coupon that accompanied the actual shirts when they were mailed out:
Nestle – Superman T-shirt mail-away offer partial newspaper clipping – 1978
It’s unfortunate that I don’t have a more complete example of the newpaper ad as it features an illustration of Superman along with a kid in his authorized Superman t-shirt.
Superman t-shirts mailed out through this promotion included a coupon to order more of them:
Nestle – Superman T-shirt insert coupon – 1978
I’ve never seen a wrapper with the Superman t-shirt offer on it, so I’m guessing that the promotion was something they rushed out to more closely coincide with the movie release, and the Superman ring offer followed.
Of course, there have been other Superman-related candy and gum offerings over the years and eventually I’ll circle back around to cover those. For today I wanted to focus on the Nestle promotions tied into 1978’s Superman: The Movie.
Well hold that — I do have one more thing to show today – it’s the candy box that I used to create today’s title image. Here it is:
Gum Products – Superman candy coated peanuts candy box – 1970’s
And that’s everything for today. See you next time!
cool stuff! would be great to see the actual ring if you ever find it
I was in kindergarten during this promo and I at least sent three different 10 packages to them and never received one ring. It was so devastating as a child. I’m surprised to hear that someone actually received one. Wish we could go back to those days finding goodies in a wrapper of my favorite candy bar!