Back in Oct 2007 Wispa came to market as a revived brand from the 90’s. At the time a spokesperson from cadburys said
“We get letters about the Aztec bar and the lime barrel in the Dairy milk tray”. But this is on a whole different scale. This is the first time we are going to give the internet a change to prove itself and see whether it is all hype or genuine”
The company claimed that social networks and internet pressure (with an online petition of 14k names) convinced them to revive the brand.
Cynics or the marketeers amongst us will be looking at very good PR (and with Mad.co.uk having pointed out back in August ’07 that Publicis were appointed to launch Wispa back into the market this seems likely) and now, 18 months later, the buzz is back.
The “bring back Wispa Gold” group on Facebook now 
has 17k members and growing swiftly. According to the text on the page once they hit 20k members Cadburys will relaunch the chocolate bar. Cadbury playing to the public pressure or Cadbury engineering this perceived want in the first place?
The idea of nostalgia is always an interesting one and, if you have the right product for the right memories, something that can’t fail to eventually come back full circle and back in vogue.
Wispa, regardless, have done an amazing effort at integrating with the social networks, recruiting brand fans and fulfilling the nostalgic promise back to their brand adorers. Their recent campaign “for the love of Wispa” couldn’t help but fail to bring a smile as their site proceeded to recruit advertising stars and then film an ad, screened as their ad, just about how great wispa is.
Will be interesting to see whether the gold phenomenum comes to an on shelf product and how Wispa continue to build their fanbase around their product: How long can nostalgia last and a brand thats been brought back to life go back to being another mainstream brand that lies shouting for attention on shelf?
Amy Naughton 