... anyone engaging in a real-life game of Tomb Raider in many parts of the British Isles would be doing something “unquestionably illegal.”
A marketing push by the British confectioner equating digging into a box of chocolates with digging up artifacts at heritage sites was described as “shocking, ill-advised & irresponsible.”
The company recently marketed its Freddo Treasures chocolates with an advertising campaign that urged consumers to “grab your metal detector and go hunting for Roman riches” and other artifacts at specific sites around Britain and Ireland.
A website for the campaign suggested that adventurers “dig up Viking silver on the River Ribble,” “hunt for precious rings in Fermanagh” and “mine for Saxon gold in Chelmsford, Essex.”
“Are you willing to get your hands dirty to discover more?” the website asked, effectively comparing the act of opening a box of chocolates to searching for ancient relics. At certain sites, the ad campaign said, “the treasure’s fair game.”
Archaeologists and museum curators were quick to object.1
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Mondelez International, which owns Cadbury, said in a statement that it had not meant “to encourage anyone to break existing regulations regarding the discovery of new archaeological artifacts.” The company said it had taken down the website and was working on “directing families to museums where existing treasures can be found.”
- 1. The company’s new “ Cadbury Treasures ” campaign is directly aimed at children and encourages metal detecting and digging at protected archaeological sites. The Daily Mail reported on the 1985 incident and have again covered this new scandal revealing how the Cadbury Treasures website is divided into two categories. The first is called “Undiscovered Treasure” and it details six ancient sites in the Republic of Ireland and England and in the “Discovered Treasure” section there are links to heritage websites with information about national collections, though none of these organizations had been contacted for approval. Source: Ancient Origins