Last week, I was asked what the dif­fer­ence was between Dairy Box and Milk Tray and I thought: good ques­tion; I’ll write a blog about that.

Dairy Box

Launched back in 1936, Dairy Box is the poster-boy for Nes­tle choco­lates. With for­mer­ly hand-filled box­es (at a rate of 80 per per­son, per minute!) the pur­ple and cream box remains a firm “what can I get mum” Moth­er’s Day favourite. And that’s not the only occas­sion; launch­ing a pre­mi­um Dairy Box East­er egg, Nes­tle hopes that delight­ed cus­tomers will for­give the 10% reduc­tion in sug­ar, set to hit the box this year. 

Milk Tray

Already an adult when Dairy Box was born, the pur­ple sweet­heart, Milk Tray, was launched all the way back in 1915. Orig­i­nal­ly, the choco­lates were tak­en out of their box and served to cus­tomers, from trays: a milk tray and a plain tray (hel­lo name!) So suc­cess­ful were the trays, that Cad­bury reduced the box­es from 5 1/2 lb to a more man­age­able 1lb (although, I fan­cy my chances at the for­mer) and the icon­ic pur­ple box of choco­lates was born.

One of Cad­bury’s longest run­ning prod­ucts, today they still sell over 8 mil­lion box­es per year, and that’s not just on Valentine’s!

“The very first time I saw ordinary television working, I was struck by a tremendous idea”

Willy Won­ka was­n’t the only one who saw the poten­tial of choco­late and tele­vi­sion. Dairy Box used their screen time to pro­vide some valu­able dat­ing advice: She’ll love it if you bring her choco­lates. Whilst Milk Tray was all about the Milk Tray Man — a dar­ing, dark and hand­some action hero who would pilot heli­cop­ers, dri­ve speed­boats and jump off cliffs, all because…

…The Lady Loves Milk Tray

Or does she? Milk Tray lost some fans when it recent­ly removed Exot­ic Delight and replaced it with Apple Crunch and that’s not the only love-loss over the years. Back in 1947, Cad­bury launched a much-loved Milk Tray Bar: your favourite eight Milk Tray choco­lates, in bar form. Sad­ly this was­n’t deemed accept­able in the 80s and was removed from pro­duc­tion in 1981.

But, some firm favourites still remain:

Content

Aside from the obvi­ous dif­fer­ence (Dairy Box use Nes­tle choco­late, whilst Milk Tray use Cad­bury) how do the con­tents stack up against each other:

Content Writing

What does this have to do with con­tent? Not a lot and at the same time, oh so much. When faced with con­tent we have to write, writer’s block can turn into writer’s wall, which devel­ops into pro­cras­ti­na­tion, fridge-search­ing and a big blank page of nothingness.

The best way to beat writer’s block? Writ­ing. The best way to get writ­ing? Write about some­thing you love. Tak­ing time out from not writ­ing, to write about some­thing you love and know (e.g. choco­late), is a great way to get you into the swing and to get the cre­ative juices flow­ing. You no longer have a blank page and when you move onto what you have to write about, it’s a lot eas­i­er to get going.

And If writing About Something You Love, Still Turns To Fridge-Raiding?

A good pro­fes­sion­al con­tent writer, like A Way With Words, can work with very lit­tle (what’s the dif­fer­ence between Dairy Box and Milk Tray?) to pro­duce a page full of rel­e­vant, engag­ing and inter­est­ing copy. Find­ing one who can do this and match your brand’s tone of voice is like find­ing the gold­en ticket!