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Hershey's Take 5
OFFICIAL SNACK REPORT
Sanctioned By WASAW
Snack Committee
Reviewed By: Paddy O'Poppycock Location: A&P OFFICIAL NAME OF SNACK: DESCRIPTION OF SNACK: It's as if someone escaped from Ben & Jerry's Headquarters and took the Hershey plant hostage for a day, forcing everyone inside to make a candy bar that tasted like Chubby Hubby, minus the ice cream. SSI RATING (SNACK SATISFACTION INDEX - 1-10): 9.3 |
First 4 ingredients:
Milk Chocolate |
UPSIDE:
How did it take the U.S. candy industry this long to try such a candy combo?
After all, mixing a ton of stuff into one sweet treat has been an ice cream
industry standard now for over 15 years. Turns out, it works in a candy bar,
too.
The pretzel base is just smart. Put a waffle pretzel at bottom and pile on the fixins! (Go ahead, kids - this is one trick you can try at home.) Holy smokes, this is good candy. And very satisfying, too. Eat just one half of it and you feel like, if you had to - if robbers swooped in and took your other half - you could go on with life without really needing that second half. But fortunately Take 5 robbers don't exist (yet), so you're free to enjoy that second half when you're good and ready. Immediately after eating the first half, for example.
DOWNSIDE:
The packaging.
PACKAGING:
You've got to be kidding me. Hershey's finally comes up with a killer candy bar, and they decide to hide it by wrapping it into a bright red, reflective gold-lettered package that screams Energy Bar for Geeks. It honestly looks like a Hershey's product manager decided that he wanted to try and appeal to both snackers and health nuts - snackers would get the ultimate candy combo, and health nuts would get the ugly reflection wrapper they've come to expect from Health Bars disguised as candy. Only the packaging repels snackers and health nuts are obsessed with reading ingredients. Nice work.
I'm honestly pissed off. Who designed this package - the makers of New Coke? The same ass that dressed Johnny Depp's Willie Wonka to look like a cross between a member of The Cure, Betty Boop and an extra in Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" video?
And for gosh sakes, the cross-section image of the candy looks like my eighth grade Earth Science textbook's drawing of layers of the earth's crust. Do I see igneous rock in there?
DO YOU RECOMMEND THIS SNACK? (YES/NO - EXPLAIN):
Yes. The candy is so good you're going to be closing your eyes in ecstasy, anyway, thereby allowing you the added benefit of not having to stare at the hideous packaging.
Clever, but it works better on paper than in reality. I just don't see kids saying to their parents, "I want a Take 5!" Or, if Hershey's offers these in movie theaters (where they really belong - a perfect sensory overload to get you through the 10 minutes of movie trailers), I can't see someone saying to a flakey snack attendant, "I'll take two Take 5's... no wait, three Take 5's. Four Take 5's? Okay, I guess my wife is going to take one, so four Take 5's." There's no way you're not getting 20 candy bars after a conversation like that. (Which wouldn't be such a bad thing if each candy bar in a theater didn't cost you a mortgage.)
HAVE SO MANY READERS EVER REQUESTED A SNACK REPORT BE WRITTEN THAN IN THE CASE OF TAKE 5?
Not even close. Those who brave the packaging to find the delicious snack hidden underneath have been awarded for their courage. And then they all turn around and email WASAW asking us to review it. Done.
On a side note, Hershey's would do well to approach Netflix or a similar DVD-rental mail company and ask to insert a coupon for a free Take 5 candy bar in each DVD rental that gets mailed out. Take 5 just really tastes like a great movie snack, and such a promotion would greatly help awareness for a snack that would appear to be in serious need of some marketing help.
