Godiva has to have great looking products that stand on their own. They must, because if you take away the gorgeous packaging and the great looking products . . . the rest looks pretty bad.

I was doing sales training for a large group of executives in Reading, Pennsylvania.  I found out that Godiva has their chocolate plant in Reading and so I tried multiple times to connect with someone, anyone with in the Godiva organization.  What I found out was that there is no way for you to talk to a real person at Godiva.  No one returns your phone calls.  Most efforts to connect via phone will find you put in endless loops of messages and promises.

I finially decided to drive out to their plant.  Ugly.  If there were not a sign in front, you would think it was the small to medium sized business that was turning out metal parts.  Brick and faded paneling.

I thought of how drastically different the beautiful Hersey facilities are an hour away and wondered at the Godiva marketing machine.   Godiva better hope that the press doesn’t discover that all that glitters is NOT gold.

My experience does change my story about Godiva as I criss cross the country talking about branding and perceptions.  In this case, the gold has lost it luster.