Gold balls at the Ór - Ireland's Gold exhibition at the Museum of Archaeology in Dublin.
All that gold and not a single piece of chocolate. Isn't it interesting how certain materials become intimately linked with categories of products?
Some marketing activity would have first created or definitively articulated this link between chocolate and gold. If the association strikes a chord, other manufacturers will start to jump on the same bandwagon. Because they wish to get in on the the association. Over time the association enters mass cultural memory, and becomes hard to shake or challenge.
This can make it hard for new players to the industry. If they eschew the gold association, they risk alienating customers who may not register their product as chocolate at a glance. If they go too far fitting in with the category stereotype, the diminish their differentiation.
