When a Brand Turns Bad: Nature Valley® in the Candy Biz.

Attention brand-foodies. General Mills is sampling (and couponing) its Nature Valley Sweet and Salty Nut Granola Bar. Since the sample and 75¢-off manufacturer’s coupon came with the morning paper, it caught my attention. The Nature Valley line is a long one with lots and lots of “wholesome and delicious” product line extensions. Says so right on the website.

Never had this particular granola bar before. But you know, it looks like a rip-off of the PAYDAY Peanut Caramel Bar, now a part of the Hershey’s® line-up. I am an unabashed partisan of PAYDAY candy. Have been since the 50s, as far as I can recall. That’d put my introduction about 20 years and a complete World War after Frank Martoccio produced the candy – he went on to found Hollywood Brands, which also manufactured and sold the great ZERO candy bar. Liquor may be quicker but when you’re a kid, candy is just dandy.

I don’t know how much Hershey’s spends on PAYDAY advertising. I do know that the General spends plenty on Nature Valley, which is today synonymous with granola, all-natural ingredients and healthy eating habits.

Except when it’s candy, too. Which this particular product from Nature Valley is. Just like PAYDAY. Honest. I compared the labels. I adjusted for the fact that the Sweet and Salty Nut Granola Bar sample is 1.2 ounces and a standard PAYDAY is 1.5 ounces. Considering the serving size difference, the Nature Valley product has more calories than the PAYDAY, slightly more total fat and 2.5 grams more saturated fat. Its sodium level is higher than a PAYDAY; it does have 3 grams less sugars, but also less protein.

Candy bar. Candy bar. Candy bar. The same or candier than PAYDAY, which straightforwardly claims “sweet caramel and tons of salty peanuts.”

These Nature Valley bars average about 50¢ each online, while PAYDAY’s running between 63¢ and 71¢. With the coupons (75¢ in the sampler, $1 online), you could do better money-wise with the supposedly “perfect heart-healthy” treat. And, given brand loyalty, maintain your right-thinking relationship with this granola-bar line at the same time.

It is just a candy bar. But a candy bar by any other name still tastes as sweet, no matter how you advertise it. Now, which brand is the most honest advertiser?

Hershey’s® Placement

Did you mark the appearance of a Hershey’s chocolate bar in this morning’s Hi and Lois® comic panels? When America’s largest – and most iconic – manufacturer of chocolate bars shows up in a comic strip, artist Chance Browne makes it charmingly ordinary. (The cartoon is 55 years old after all.)

It drew my attention to the Hershey’s® stock price. It’s playing today at about $33.45, having performed quite a bit better over the past 12 months than most oilfield service company stocks. The chocolate company’s much more stable. As a symbol of hope and normalcy, of Hiram Flagston and his job at Foofram Industries, maybe the Hershey’s bar is unintentionally…perfect.

© 2009, King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Idaho Spud®

Older, “classic” brands don’t always represent great products.

That seems to be true of the Idaho Spud, from the Idaho Candy Company in Boise: “Delivering the Finest Candy and Service Since 1901.” Laura Kamrath delivered these treats to Houston; she picked up several at a trade show in Louisiana. Patrick Fisher, writing on FinkBuilt.com, calls it an “old-skool candy bar.”

The Idaho Candy Company started in 1901, built a new factory in ’09 and produced more than 50 different candy bars and many boxed chocolates (including Owyhee Butter Toffee) over the years. The website boasts a fan club with Idaho Spud recipes and not much else.

Like other older candy brands, its fame these days spreads more by word of mouth than formal advertising…enthusiasts who spot it lurking on the lower shelves of smaller grocery stores – or run across it a an oil industry trade show, for God’s sake. We (Kamrath and I) suspect that someone connected the brand name to the oilfield term “spud in” – to begin drilling, to start an oil well – and decided to use the bars as memorable handouts.

Sad to relate, the Idaho Spud is an unusual confection, an acquired taste like a number of regional candy bars. Its flavors…a wonderful combination of a light cocoa flavored marshmallow center drenched with a dark chocolate coating and then sprinkled with coconut (Sorry, no potato!)…are muddled and a bit stale.

There must be some nostalgia, and quite a lot of private-label manufacturing, to enable the Idaho Candy Company to remain in business. I wish ‘em success…but no one’s going to waste a formal marketing campaign on the Idaho Spud.

On the other side of the Spud is the almost equally classic Zero candy bar, created in 1931 by the Hollywood Candy Company in Minnesota and made ever since of “Caramel, Peanut, and Almond nougat covered with white fudge.”

Zero has a loyal consumer base (including me) and I ran across a fresh box as recently as this afternoon in a Huntsville, TX, Valero C-store. To repeat one candy retailer, I’m comforted that candy bars like the Zero, and yes, even the Idaho Spud, are merely “hard to find,” not “no longer in production.” Since the Zero is produced today by Hershey, I’m pretty certain it gets more channel attention that the stolid Spud.

But hey, you’ll want to taste-test these two traditional confections. Let me know how that turns out. Ta for the weekend.

Photo: Richard Derk/Los Angeles Times