Ferrero Rocher

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A box of Ferrero Rocher

Ferrero Rocher are small, spherical chocolatesweets made by Ferrero SpA. The sweets consist of a whole roasted hazelnut encased in a thin wafer shell filled with nutella/hazelnut cream and covered in milk chocolate and chopped hazelnuts. The sweets are individually packaged in a gold-coloured wrapper and are only 75 calories apiece.

Before the filling of a Ferrero Rocher and after the filling of a Ferrero Rocher

In the small town of Alba, Italy, master confectioner Pietro Ferrero developed a system that enabled him to mass-produce true quality confections and offer them to consumers at reasonable prices. His philosophy was to use the highest quality ingredients,and not to duplicate anyones else's creations. The first of the Ferrero products was Pasta Gianduja, a chocolate-hazelnut spread that was later re-named Nutella. It quickly became popular throughout the world.

Piertro Ferrero died in the early 1950s and left his company to his son Michael Ferrero. Michael continued to expand on his father's creations and has been able to expand the Ferrero company worldwide, as far as Brazil and Japan.

Ferreo Rocher opened its offices in 1969 in New York City. However it was not the Ferrero Rocher that was presented to New York, but rather it was Tic Tacs that became highly popular and were seen throughout store shelves.

In Hong Kong, Ferrero Rocher is a very popular gift during the holidays, especially during Chinese New Year. The Chinese associate the packaging with good fortune and wealth since the chocolate is wrapped in gold paper foil.^{[citation needed]}

A Rocher, Layer by Layer

[edit] Advertising

In the UK, the product is perhaps more famous for its original TV advertisements than for its taste or nutritional value. It was promoted to a down-market audience as an aspirational brand by means of an originally Italian advertisement showing an ambassador's butler offering a huge piled plate of the sweets to the guests at an embassy party. Presented conventionally, this advertisement might have had no extraordinary impact - but the English-language soundtrack of the British version adopted a deliberately kitsch and tongue-in-cheek style which made the product an icon of "false aspirational" products almost immediately. The opening voice-over, "The Ambassador's receptions are noted in society for their hosts' exquisite taste", together with the comments of "Eccellente" and "Monsieur, with these Rocher, you're really spoiling us" from guests at the reception, remain widely recognised in the UK. Further signs of the impact of this advert are that it has has been parodied by a number of comedians, and that the concept of a butler wandering around holding a silver tray with a mountain of Ferrero Rocher has become a trope, and a popular stereotype of diplomacy in general.

(The use of self-mocking adverts to suit the British taste in humour is common. One example was Milka Lila Pause, a name which originally seemed cumbersome and embarrassing to the British ear, a fact which which advertisers exploited by the later slogan "Great taste; shame about the name". Similarly Walkers Crisps made an ironic use of the reputation for "niceness" of ex-footballer Gary Lineker by producing adverts which showed that the product must be irresistible because they would turn even him to the dark side by tempting him to steal crisps from little children.)

[edit] References to the television advertisement

"The ambassador is really spoiling us with this one!"^[1]
"The assembled press could only have thought: 'Ambassador, with these cack-handed spy antics, you are really spoiling us'."^[2]
"Like the fabled Ferrero Rocher ambassador, Nintendo is really spoiling us this year."^[3]

In some branding studies in Italy it was remarked upon that the golden packaging was chosen in order to give an "elite" status to this kind of candy. In one spot in the late 1990s, Richard Gere was a testimonial for the brand.