For many consumers it is being a drama: Twitter is filled with complaints and lamentations. The news of the closure of the iconic confectioner Party ran like wildfire that burns. Everyone feared by Fresquito candy or popular Kojak, that this apparent closure would no longer manufactured. For some, the news meant much more, it’s like they stole children, they say, and others and recommend go buy the last provisions that may be available in stores products confectioner. Thus the news about Kojak, managed to put the brand as the main trending topic.
However, all the hype corresponds only to the widespread rumor that the company seems to have been quick to deny and soon will know through a special statement. They claim from Gonzoo, through a telephone conversation, the company has denied the news spread by different means being blunt: “The activity of the company continues”. According to this source, “what will occur is a liquidation of the company, which will end with the sale of the company, but, he insists, production, time, will not be affected.” At least it clarifies as well, it is what it seems at the moment.
The alleged closure Fiesta was not presented only as a news story about how the crisis has taken its toll on the business or on how brands with more distant origins in time have more trouble adjusting to the changes involved over weather. It is also a story about how to have a good brand is not enough to survive in the jungle of business. In addition, that, despite rumors, is still a reality.
Last September, the company announced before a court could not meet the commitments agreed in the bankruptcy proceedings in which he was immersed and will therefore be liquidated. With the publication today in the Official Gazette of the court decision, the fate of Fiesta has transcended the general public thanks first to the news on the economic means and then in others. Along the way, this process and fears that a brand so dear and tied to feelings and nostalgia disappeared have made this issue one of the topics of the moment viral social networks.
How a brand can stay inside our minds and awaken in this way our nostalgia and so many reactions?
Party did not invent the lollipop (and sweet pricked ate on a stick in the Middle Ages, although the grandparents of the current purulent can actually be found in the nineteenth century) but for many buyers is so associated with it as if it were. In fairness, it should be noted that although they did not invent the concept, yes invented the word in Castilian to refer to it. Overall, the company is strongly associated with childhood memories and all the positive charge that is often associated with them. From its lollipops, to the breeze, the Lollipop (a sort of lollipop made with a soft caramel) and especially the Kojak (one lollipop – although Chupa-Chups is a brand that has nothing to do with them – with a candy inside and a distinctive flavor) are easily identifiable by consumers and are present in their memories. Everyone took once one of these goodies.
How can a brand known since the millennials and the first of Generation Z to the Generation X and the above (its products have been present in the childhoods in the last 50 years) disappear or having compromised the continuity of its activity?
Guilt is input, the economic crisis
“Children do not even eat candy,” lamenting company sources to The Huffington Post. In times of recession products that are not, necessities are the first to fall on the shopping list and treats are not exactly what is said necessities. Blaming a change in consumer habits seems a little more difficult: the consumer gives the feeling that the contents of the candy stores today are not very different from those for 10 and even 20 years.
In addition, the firm may not have known depreciate the value of your brand. The products they manufacture are well known (though perhaps consumers are not so clear that they are also those behind blackberries or cherries gummy, of liquorice with cream or mummies) and is often close enough what could be considered a lovemark. However, having a known brand and with heavy heart of consumers is not enough to survive. The list of powerful brands that fell because they were unable to maintain their brand values is long, and they succumbed to the new times.
Companies must always renewing itself and maintaining the level of interest that consumers once had in them. In the case of a product, which can be linked, so quickly into the past, it could be even simpler, as the nostalgic helps sell more and consumers today and consumers are nowadays obsessed with anything that might be minimally retro. But in the food distribution market note it is much more difficult than in other markets, as the number of products and brands that market is very high.
The public, delivered to nostalgia
The news has also sparked a wave of nostalgia among consumers in social networks. Millennials are a generation very dedicated to the exaltation of memories and, unsurprisingly, they are the ones who are turning to products of the firm in the protagonists of the day in social media rushing to claim the role they had in their childhood (and wondering what will eat the children of the future). In fact, some have used to make memory and remember considered mythical brands that have disappeared from the shops, despite being closely linked to his childhood memories.
The news of the alleged closure Fiesta has enabled remembers, for example, the disappearance of the Boomer bubble gum, whose factory in Zaragoza also began closing a few years ago. Nostalgia for these gums is also quite clear: just start typing in Google gum Boomer to finish the search suggest search request with ‘disappearance’.