Brits give up Chocolate to Broadband

In a survey that highlights the importance of Internet access in people’s lives, Brits would rather give up alcohol and chocolate before broadband.

With the New Year looming and the making of resolutions upper most on peoples’ minds, a survey by Sky Broadband has shown how important Internet access is for our everyday lives.

When asked which would they rather give up for a month, 41% of men would give up chocolate, 29% would give up alcohol, whereas only 1% would give up their Internet access.

Women were more willing to give up alcohol than chocolate and only 2% of them would be prepared to give up their broadband connection.

Even sex was willing to be sacrificed in favour of broadband with 4% of men and 16% of women saying that they would be more prepared to abstain for a month rather than lose their broadband.

Commenting on these survey results, which questioned 5,246 people, Delia Bushell, Director of Broadband and Telephony at Sky, said:

“The verdict is pretty clear – you can take away sex and chocolate but you’ll never take away our broadband! The survey plainly shows that we Brits are devoted to our broadband as it does make our lives easier in so many ways, from saving money by shopping online to staying in touch with friends and family, or even finding a new job.”

Chocolate and Social Media

O, chocolate. You stole our hearts the day we met you (in Mexico, about 3,000 years ago). Since then, royalty and aristocrats have feasted on goblets of you, armies have sustained themselves by snacking on you, a whole town in Pennsylvania was built for the milk version of you, and copious lovestruck teenagers have swooned over heart-shaped boxes of you. The world has a deep, lengthy and curious history with chocolate.  As a result, chocolatiers and chocolate-makers have the luxury of commanding an audience that is undyingly passionate about their products.  

In a world where communication between brand and consumer continues to become more and more personalized, conversational and transparent, chocolate companies have a unique opportunity to connect. Most of those discussed here, which are smaller, artisanal brands, simply don’t have a ton of marketing spend at their disposal. Obviously, social media is a critical and powerful marketing tool. So the big question is, how do these companies maximize the fan love? 

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Neighborhood Darlings: Engaging Your Local Community

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Bean-to-bar chocolate companies — as in those that make pure chocolate from scratch — are few and far between. Though the number of American artisanal chocolate makers has grown exponentially within the past six years, having a chocolate factory in your hometown is a pretty sweet and special treat.

The folks at Missouri-based Askinosie Chocolate work with a local baker to create special cupcake recipes using Askinosie’s chocolate. Then, every Tuesday (known at Askinosie as Cupcake Tuesday), the baker makes around 200 special cupcakes. According to Lawren Askinosie, whose official title is “Pursuer of the Passionates,” local residents get wind of the week’s latest flavors on Twitter, storm the Askinosie shop and the cupcakes sell out every week. During this past summer’s “Hide and Eat” campaign, the company hid chocolate bars inside the storefronts of other local businesses, posted clues on Facebook () and Twitter () each day and incited local residents to rush the different stores to discover the bars.  

Strategies to engage the local community are in a whole different realm than those focused on national or international fans. Neighborhood companies can offer their local fans something that no one else can have. It’s all about creating something really special, narrowing down the channels through which people can find out about it, and mixing things up a little by partnering up with other nearby businesses. Part of the allure of any artisanal food company is that engagement online can, with a little effort, lead nearby fans directly to something delicious that can be eaten on the spot. 

We can learn a lot from the raging food truck obsession that’s taken over our big cities. Scharffen Berger, a leading American chocolate maker who is in a very different place in the chocolate market than the smaller companies included here, recently partnered up with New York City bakery Sweetery’s dessert truck, Street Sweets, to promote a Scharffen Berger chocolate cupcake recipe contest. Thousands of Scharffen Berger chocolate cupcakes were given away during two days in late October, with Twitter updates offering the truck’s whereabouts around the city.

If you won a 65-lbs chocolate Santa...

One man in Michiana received a very special Christmas present Friday. For his sake, we hope he's a chocolate lover.

The South Bend Chocolate Company created this 65-pound chocolate Santa Claus, and over the past few weeks customers could enter a drawing to win it.

Friday, they picked the winner—Tom Carter.

South Bend Chocolate says everyone has their own strategy about devouring this behemoth.

“One group that did it, they had little ice picks and little hammers,” said Bob Radde, “they just took it and kids took turns going at it, chipping a piece off and they kept rotating through until Santa was gone.”

The winner of this Santa says he may try melting it down.

'Chocolate cough remedy' in sight

A chemical in cocoa could soon be turned into a medicine for persistent cough, researchers claim.

Scientists are carrying out the final stages of clinical trials of a drug that contains theobromine, an ingredient found in chocolate and cocoa.

The UK developers say the drug could be on the market within two years.

Every year in Britain an estimated 7.5m people suffer from persistent cough - a cough lasting more than two weeks.

Most current medicines used to control the symptoms are opiate-based ones like cough syrups containing codeine, a narcotic.

But in October the Medicines and Health products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said under-18s should not take codeine-based remedies, because the risks outweighed the benefits.

Active ingredient

Researchers say the new theobromine treatment should not have this problem. And being flavourless, it can be taken by those who dislike chocolate.

Theobromine is thought to work by inhibiting the inappropriate firing of the vagus nerve, which is a key feature of persistent cough.

The final stage of the drug's testing is set to begin in the next few months.

The drug, called BC1036, is being developed by the private UK company SEEK.

Manfred Scheske, CEO of Consumer Health at SEEK said: "I am very excited to announce the progression for the late-stage development of BC1036, which has the potential to dramatically impact the treatment of persistent cough and could greatly benefit the quality of life of persistent cough sufferers."

Professor Alyn Morice of the Hull Cough Clinic said there was a need for new treatments.

"Thousands of people across the UK suffer from persistent cough, and due to the drawbacks of current opioid drugs such as codeine, we are in desperate need of a non-opioid treatment with a drastically improved side effect profile for patients."