Owner Nestlé (since 1990) Introduced 1923 | ||
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Related brands Previous owners Curtiss Candy Company (1923-1964)Standard Brands Inc. (1964-1981)Nabisco (1981-1985)RJR Nabisco (1985-1988)Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (1988-1990) | ||
How to make homemade butterfinger candy
Butterfinger is a candy bar created in 1923 in Chicago, Illinois by Otto Schnering, which currently is manufactured by Nestlé. The bar consists of a crispy core of creamy peanut butter blended with sugar candy in chocolatey coating. Butterfinger has become known for humorous marketing and a roster of memorably funny spokespersons, including Bart Simpson, Top Cat, Seth Green, Erik Estrada, Rob Lowe, and Jamie Pressly, its most recent and first female spokesperson. Other memorable ad campaigns include counting down the end of the world or BARmageddon, with evidence such as the first-ever, QR-shaped crop circle in Kansas, a Butterfinger comedy-horror movie called “Butterfinger the 13th,” the first interactive digital graphic novel by a candy brand starring the Butterfinger Defense League, and several attention-grabbing April Fool’s Day pranks, including the renaming of the candy bar to “The Finger.”
With 2010 sales of $598 million, Butterfinger has become increasingly popular and has typically ranked as the eleventh most popular candy bar sold in the $17.68 billion United States chocolate confectionery market between 2007 and 2010.
Contents
- How to make homemade butterfinger candy
- Giant butterfinger how to cook that ann reardon giant candy bar recipe
- History
- Nestl advertising campaigns
- Variations
- Use by other manufacturers
- German GMO controversy
- Similar products other manufacturers
- References
Giant butterfinger how to cook that ann reardon giant candy bar recipe
History
The Curtiss Candy Company was founded near Chicago, Illinois, in 1922 by Otto Schnering, using his mother's maiden name. He invented the Butterfinger candy bar in 1923. The company held a public contest to choose the name of this candy. In an early marketing campaign, the company dropped Butterfinger and Baby Ruth candy bars from airplanes in cities across the United States as a publicity stunt that helped increase its popularity. The candy bar also was promoted in Baby Take a Bow, a 1934 film featuring Shirley Temple.
In 1964, Standard Brands Inc. purchased the Curtiss Candy Company. It then merged with Nabisco in 1981. RJR Nabisco was formed in 1985 by the merger of Nabisco Brands and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. In 1988, RJR Nabisco was purchased by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in what was at the time, the largest leveraged buyout in history.
In 1990, Nestlé, a Swiss multinational food and beverage company, bought Baby Ruth and Butterfinger from RJR Nabisco. When measured by revenues, Nestlé is considered the largest food company in the world.
Nestlé advertising campaigns
Two of the slogans currently used to advertise the candy bar are "Follow the Finger" and "Break out of the ordinary!" Prior to these, Bart Simpson, Homer Simpson, and other characters from Fox's The Simpsons, appeared in numerous advertisements for the product from 1988 to 2001, featuring the slogans "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger!", "Bite my Butterfinger!", and "Nothin' like a Butterfinger!"
Butterfinger, for unknown reasons, terminated a long-standing advertising contract with The Simpsons in late 2001. Reacting to this, the January 2002 Simpsons episode "Sweets and Sour Marge" included a scene depicting Butterfinger bars as nonflammable; the character Chief Wiggum says, "Even the fire doesn't want them."
In February 2003, in the episode "Barting Over", Bart claims he does not recall being in any commercials in the past, and then eats a Butterfinger just as he did in the commercials. In the November 2014 episode Simpsorama, a crossover with Futurama, Butterfingers are used to lure the Bart creatures into Madison Cube Garden.
On April 1, 2008, Nestlé launched an April Fool's Day prank in which they claimed that they had changed the name of the candy bar to "The Finger", citing consumer research that indicated that the original brand was "clumsy" and "awkward". The prank included a fake Web site promoting the change that featured a video press release. When the joke was revealed, the website redirected visitors to the fictitious "Butterfinger Comedy Network".
In 2009, a new advertisement for Butterfinger was produced that appeared to be a homage to the earlier The Simpsons commercials. In 2010, Butterfinger revived its "Nobody better lay a finger..." slogan as "Nobody's gonna lay a finger on my Butterfinger."
In 2011, a comedy horror film entitled Butterfinger The 13th, was made to promote the product. In April 2013, an official announcement via the Twitter account of The Simpsons stated that the "Nobody better lay a finger" advertising campaign featuring Bart Simpson would be returning.
Since 2014, Butterfinger has sponsored Top Cat on the Inscape Channel, signing a six-year contract with the network.
Variations
Use by other manufacturers
A part of Edy's Fun Flavors line (Dreyer's west of the Rocky Mountains and outside the U.S.). The product is vanilla ice cream with a peanut butter swirl and bits of the Butterfinger candy bar in it.
Grocery store Kroger has a flavor in their "Jammed" line called Peanut Butter Candy Crunch that is a peanut-flavored frozen dairy dessert with Butterfinger chunks and a peanut butter swirl whose taste resembles that of the Butterfinger candy bar.
German GMO controversy
Butterfinger was withdrawn from the German market in 1999 due to consumer rejection when it was one of the first products to be identified as containing genetically modified ingredients (GMOs) from corn. Butterfinger sales ended after a successful campaign by Greenpeace pushed Nestlé to remove the product from German supermarkets.