Thursday, May 24, 2007

Peter's then and now

An old painted ad in Gloucester Street in the Rocks; a new display sign at the beach kiosk. Peter's ice cream is still here, but how things have changed!
Founded in Sydney in 1910, Peter's only made vanilla ice cream until the 1940's. In the fifties they introduced 'rainbow', chocolate and strawberry flavours as well as the first ice cream on stick (read the full history here). Today the brand belongs to Nestlé and the range has increased dramatically: Lifesavers, Billa Bong, Maxibon, Icy Pole, Dixie, Drumstick, Frosty Fruits, Hava Heart, Milo Scoop Shake, Smarties push-ups... Mmmmh I'd love to do a study on globalisation according to Nestlé : can you find the same ice creams in your country, do they bear the same names?

Une vieille publicité peinte dans Gloucester Street (quartier des Rocks), un nouveau panneau publicitaire au kiosque de la plage : les glaces Peter's existent toujours mais ont bien évolué !
Fondée à Sydney en 1910, la maison Peter's n'a fait que du parfum vanille jusque dans les années quarante. Dans les années cinquante sont venus les parfums chocolat, fraise et 'arc-en-ciel', ainsi que la première glace en bâton (lire tout l'historique ici). Aujourd'hui la marque est une filiale de Nestlé.
Tiens, je ferais bien une étude sur la mondialisation selon Nestlé : Lifesavers, Billa Bong, Maxibon, Icy Pole, Dixie, Drumstick, Frosty Fruits, Hava Heart, Milo Scoop Shake, Smarties push-ups, ces noms et ces produits se retrouvent-ils chez vous, peut-être adaptés ou traduits ?

20 comments:

Nathalie H.D. said...

I have already found that the Smarties Push-up has become the Smarties Pouss in France.

Also it seems that Nestle, having bought out many different brands around the world, has kept the original names that people were used to but standardised the logo worldwide : a blue frame on a white background.
Comparing the Peter's ice cream logo with that of Glaces Gervais, also owned by Nestlé, proves my point. I Suppose the same happened elsewhere?

Nathalie H.D. said...

J'ai déja trouvé que les Smarties Push-ups s'appellent Smarties Pouss en France (je ne connaissais pas, ça a dû sortir depuis mon départ de France).

Un autre truc intéressant : Beaucoup de marques locales ayant été rachetées par Nestlé, la marque a gardé les noms auxquels les gens étaient habitués mais a standardisé le look au niveau mondial, ce qui fait qu'à l'oeil le logo Peter's ice cream ressemble furieusement à celui des Glaces Gervais, aussi racheté par Nestlé. Je serais tentée de penser que la même chose s'est produit ailleurs !

Tara said...

We have Drumsticks and Push-Ups in the US. The chocolate Billabong looks like our Fudgesicle.

Mmmmm....Ice Cream....

don said...

hummmm i just had a pear ice but your names are not here in the netherlands. The Smarties could be but the rest...

isa said...

The names might be different, but I recognize the ice-cream by their shapes ;-) So to answer your question: yes, we have them in the States.
Personally, I am partial to Ben&Jerry's (OK, let's be honest - I am addicted!) with fun names like Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey - do you have them in AU?

http://www.benjerry.com/index.cfm

GMG said...

We have different names and Nestle ice cream are not my favourites, but your photos are great! I particularly loved the Fog and Surf pictures. Great job!

bv said...

I would be amazed to find out that Billabong and Lifesaver exist out of Dowun Under!!

Je serais très surpris d'apprendre que Billabong et Lifesaver sont des marques qui existent en dehors de l'Australie!!

Olivier said...

je trouve l'ancienne publicité bien plus belle que les publicites modernes (qui se ressemblent tristement). Et elles sont bonnes ces glaces ?

hpy said...

D'accord avec Olivier pour dire que l'ancienne pub est bien plus intéressante, mais c'est peut-être parce qu'elle est ancienne aujourd'hui, donc différente, pas parce que à son époque elle était différente des autres. Quand j'étais petite il n'y avait que les parfums vanille, chocolat et fraise.

Cergie said...

En tout cas l'ancienne pub est dans un excellent état et son emplacement sous une arcade t'a permis une excellente prise
J'aime beaucoup son graphisme.
On sent qu'elle a été dessinée par un artiste avec un souci de simplification et de beauté, le goût du travail bien fait et non à la chaîne en appliquant un savoir faire comme dans les pubs modernes...

Peter said...

Nobody asked about using my name! Quite a bit of royalties to touch there!

I remember that the "Mars" were called "Japp" in Sweden, when I was young - not any more. I still like them, whatever they are called, and it has made my dentist a rich man!

Nothing like Italian icecream! Or? I once followed a tourist guide in Venice to the best ice cream place and they offered the Nestlé version! Not always well updated these guides!

Sally said...

I like how the rival companies have the same icecreams with different names - eg Streets Cornetto = Peters Drumstick.

I loooooove Billabongs!

What's your favourite?

Nathalie H.D. said...

Thanks so much all for your contributions.
Tara, it's interesting to find the same product under a different name (and as bv said, it would be surprising to see the word Billabong used outside OZ)


Don, a pear ice ? Mmmm

Isabella, no Ben n'Jerry here -perhaps worth starting importing them?

Olivier, hpy, cergie, oui j'aime bien les anciennes pubs peintes

Sally, there's more: I found that Nestlé uses the 'Streets' heart logo on the French Miko ice creams: This shows that they are now creating a worldwide identity by mixing logos and visual markers of various origins. In the end, no matter where you go you will recognise your home products.

Not quite equivalent to getting the same Maccas hamburgers all over the world, but getting there.

And, BTW, which is my favorite?
The cone I suppose but I'm not a huge fan of ice cream. Plus with winter coming, ice cream, brrrr ! Too cold!

Anonymous said...

If you notice, the 'old' ice cream advertiser, has made clever use of the drop shadow to create a 3D effect, a feature which would have been quite innovative for its day. Nowadays of course, we can achieve this with the click of a key and it's impact is perhaps, less noticeable

Kate said...

Ice cream under ANY name is a delightful treat. I agree with Isabella, Ben and Jerry's, esp Cherry Garcia is divine.

Anonymous said...

I like your ice cream shots, nathalie, and as good as ice cream gets these days, nobody knows, except some really old people, like me, what ice cream used to be like.

Before we had an ice box and before we had a refrigerator we had ice cream in the winter and mother made it from freshly fallen snow.

One large "dish pan" filled with fresh snow was enough to make two smaller cereal bowls filled with what we called, "snowcream."

I must admit, it had the taste of snow and if you have been on a mountain and drank some water from melting snow then this had that taste-- snow. But the thing that made is super, for kids, in those days, was the vanilla extract mother put in it and also some real cane sugar.

Oh my that was really good stuff. It was a poor person's ice cream during the Depression and afterwards.

Nowadays, I like home made ice cream -- the kind you have to churn yourself. Oh that is really good stuff and local churches have annual ice cream socials here where I live and there are whole churches filled up with people patiently waiting for their turn to buy some and set down and eat it in the church and chat with old friends.

The village where I was born has two each year and we try to go to one or the other. Good ice cream.

Wow. I am hungry now.

Thanks, nathalie, for coming to my blog and for commenting there. You always make my day special. As do a lot of other people here.

Maxime said...

A tout prendre, c'est plutôt la première que je commanderais, de celles qui sont préparées "maison". Mais on dirait qu'ils ne la font plus.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps my memory's fading, Nathalie, but I felt sure we had chocolate and strawberry when the war began. I remember the 'rainbow' coming later, and being unimpressed with it.

I was amused to see your reference to Billa Bong, and surprised no one asked whether it contained what's normally found in bongs. But Billabong is certainly a better name for an ice cream than it's northern hemisphere equivalent of ox bow lake.

Anonymous said...

I like when old things persist, like my Leica, and I'm interested when brands persist as well. It's curious how Nestle kept the logotype but changed it subtly into a more curly italic version. Maybe this is because the original logo had too many echoes of Nestle

Z said...

Like some of your other commenters, I too recognize the shapes here in CH, but the names are different and I don't know what they are.