Chocolate - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 9/20/24

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It was back in nineteen it was in the early, no mid nineties.

It was in the mid nineties.

And as I was growing up in my life, I always knew I was going to be in TV and film.

Never thought it was going to be radio. Never did. But it's the best foundation of all of them. Absolutely.

But in the mid nineties, at one point I had saved up my money and I went to the second Hollywood at the time, which was Orlando, and I paid rent for one full month and everything I needed to just stay alive for a month. And my whole plan was to audition, audition, audition. I was going to get TV shows, I was singing at films, and the whole lot was going on at that time. It was either go to La New York or Orlando, and so I went to Orlando. I lived in an area called winter Park.

Being from the South, you kind of expect that. I mean, it's just the way it is.

That's how you're taught that the guys do that kind of thing. But he always did everybody, every woman, and as I moved around. I recognized that that wasn't happening, and I recognized how special that was. And at one point, not all that long ago, I caught back up with.

Him and I let him know.

I said, man, you ruined it for all the other people along the way, because as I've traveled and lived here and lived there, I've recognized that men don't do that. They don't do that anymore, or they just don't do that at all, where they stand up and say, hey, I got all the women's meals and we're talking really nice restaurants. It didn't matter. It didn't matter what the

We'll talk about that tonight.

But it was so great getting back with him and then learning what he's been doing and where he is now. And that is our the real Willie Wonka. He is a chocolate chocolate tear. I want to learn more about that. But he just recently put out a book, Chocolate Covered Money, Secrets of the marketing Genius who built the world's most

Well. Thank you for that warm sentiment. Connie, it's nice to get here.

Yeah, I love it. Here you are. This is Brad Yader, and Brad you you know what tell me your road to success? You and I met in winter Park, Florida. Not Winter Park, Colorado, winter Park, Florida. I lived right now. You went to Rollins College. I live right next to that. But you and I met when you were holding auditions for a game show.

Yes, the game show actually was Bigo, which I had the rights to very briefly. And here's a fun fact, Connie, to this day, I'm still the biggest winner in the history of NBC daytime for game shows. I was on Let's Make a Deal. There was it MGM Studios or or Universal in Orlando.

At the time. Yeah, I think it was Universal Universal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I think during the pandemic then Let's Make a Deal is still on CBS and they had the Tournament of Champions and I was invited back, so yes, yeah, he didn't make it as far. This time. I was playing against the woman who had filmed the pilot of Let's Make a Deal with Monty Hall back in nineteen sixty one. They found both of us.

Wow, okay, but you were on some other game shows too. You're like known for all this game show stuff.

Yeah. Back in the day when I had the time, I was on every game show you could name, the Pyramid and Shopping Spree and I can't even remember what.

Was the show. I was on the cover of US.

Magazine for one of those programs, one with Chuck Barriss at the time, he was right, the.

Don Show, the Donk Show. It was you did not.

It was the one where there was a panel of people. I can't even remember the name. I have to pull the magazine.

Now, what's my line to tell the truth?

One of those?

Yes?

Okay?

Oh three the cloud, that's three.

The crowd? Oh three is the crowd?

Did?

Did you? Didn't you do Jeopardy? Or no?

No, didn't do Jeopardy?

Dude, you would have been good at that.

Probably my shows are a little bit more nonsense because that's kind of my personality.

Oh okay, okay, okay, okay, Well I still wish George Nory was, you know, the host of Jeopardy. I think he'd been great at that. He'd been great at that. He'd been perfect at that. He was so phenomenal, Absolutely absolutely, he'd just been perfect. Okay, So so you did you did? Let's make a deal. Also then with Wayne Brady.

Yes, I did. I did the first version with Monte Hallam and the second one with Wayne Brady.

Wow.

And Wayne he went to sac University in Orlando, WIV Yeah, improv university. Yeah, yep, I went there too, and that's what it was known for. But it's like, oh yeah, Wayne, Wayne, Wayne went here, you know, so so he got a big name.

Really quickly in our area. So that was really cool.

So yeah, so what happened with the Bingo game that you know?

That's where we met. Do you remember that.

I remember I was doing consulting at the time. I was Cadiga, was a sponsor back in those days when you knew me in Florida.

That was decades ago.

I was Gogo was sponsoring game shows and it was product placement, you know how these prizes and the manufacturers can contribute cash. And oh, we were co developing game shows with some of the networks and at the time they put me in charge of that. Because Godiva's main office was in Brussels, then of course we happened to have a factory in Philadelphia, and then my offices were in Florida. I've since moved to California, of course, because Los Angeles really is where the action is in luxury

And how come it got so upscale? Whose fault was that?

Well, there are some people who say that I had something to do with that.

Actually, So tell us about your chocolate life.

Well, to make a long story short, Connie, I'm the only American in history to have managed all three of the three largest Belgian chocolate companies, which are Godiva, Leonides and Casey Chocolateier. And just to point out to everybody listening, I.

Own Casey Chocolate here.

So the story is very interesting because really the odds were not in my favor, and so you know, when I pitched it that way to a publisher in New York, the very first publisher I went to bought it on the spot. They said, oh, that's actually compelling. It took four years to write the book, but it's about my long career in bringing the American public fine chocolate, because I really do have a passion for chocolate, but I'm talking good chocolate.

When you were you graduated Rolands College. And is that a big business college?

Is that?

I remember it being in like this small, wonderful you know, it's really tiny, but very.

Very interesting. Was it a business Okay?

So the business school that was quite prominent. And so right after college, my first job, believe it or not, was that working as the candy buyer at Federated department stores. I was in the management training program you may remember some of the names back there. Federated owned at the time Jordan marsh, Moss, Brothers, Burdines, and Bloomingdale's. So I in charge of stocking the shelves and procuring the product

Something with this.

At some point, Federated went bankrupt for the first time of many times, and that's when I went from buying.

Chocolate to selling chocolate.

I wound up working at Godiva for thirteen years.

Did you get how did you get to the point of saying, okay, I'm working with you guys here I am I'm with Godiva, I see this diamond in the rough, I've got ideas, and then implementing them.

How did you get to that point?

Well, that was the tough part. I always insered myself a cheerleader for the Belgian chocolate industry. So I had to get in front of the decision makers and explain what my vision was, and that was to build a brand and not just sell chocolate, because anybody can make chocolate. But I'll never forget what I said to the owners. It was a brother and a sister, and I explained that they could follow me down the path to greatness.

I knew exactly what to do.

I just in my youthful exuberance, I said, look, you know, we can build stores and we can redo the packaging and everything will become great. Or you know, Godiva can follow the path of every other chocolate company in Belgium, which is basically you'll just be another chocolate company from Belgium, of which.

They're all hundreds, right, right, right.

But you you had, you you had a pretty cool plan with Godiva. You're like, really, it's a lifestyle.

That's right, That's right. The whole point of Godva was to create the marketing illusion of an aspirational brand, and what that basically means is I wanted people to feel like they really needed Godiva and had to aspire to buy it because it was forty five dollars a pound even back then, and so that was a stretch for a lot of people's budgets, and we had to position the chocolate as a special occasion gift. It really became a gift more than a food that you would eat.

And when I knew you you were working for Godiva, that's right on a person, absolutely, and you.

Know what I mean.

All I knew about you at that point was the game show guy and doing the bingo thing and uh. And then we would go on different things. I remember we would get and go out on these outings. I don't remember what they were. I just remember we ended up having dinners and he would stand up and go, I have all the women's meals, and you set the bar and no one else has ever done that. And I always remember between the times that we got back

It was always sweet and thank you for that. I appreciate that.

It's funny the things people mentioned I mean to or remember because that is just the way I operate.

You know, I know it, I know it.

That's you and Brad what you even said about Hey, this is what I'm going to tell the chocolate people. I'm gonna tell him ho, I'm going to change the world with them.

You know.

That's It's just you. That's how you are, and I love it. I love that about you. So you did.

You took a diva and made it a lifestyle and a gift and n'turally important with my days in QBC and HSN and infomercials and marketing products and stuff, boom. A gift just like that, A gift, especially chocolates.

Everybody has a gift giving budget, and people all around the world have gift giving obligations. They have to buy something they may as well buy chocolate. We called it a multi generational gift, which means that the diver could be appreciated by everybody in the family, from the youngest children all the way to grandma and you know, so it was a real alternative to some of the other gifts that people had been giving up until that time, like liquor, for example. So it did well in all markets.

Why it was really expensive.

Then there was also the seasonality, and I think about you know, this season started around Halloween and Thanksgiving right around now and peaked at Christmas, Valentine's Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, but not so much going on during the summer, really time to work on projects like the game shows.

Well that's true, that's true, But has that changed because people just want chocolate.

Well, nowadays there's more chocoholics than alcoholics.

Is it a drugs? Have they found it to be addictive as a drug?

They have done. They, meaning people who do surveys and research, have determined that it's chocolate activates the brain and does somehow how create sensory pleasures that become activated. I'm not exactly sure the science behind that. We don't purport to state any of this in our marketing materials, but there does seem to be some I don't know in common belief. Yes, chocolate's a feel good product, and when people consume it, they also subliminally are thought to think that it's healthy.

And I think people I think people just will have any excuse to eat chocolate.

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