Cr-ISIS and the chocolate factory

In the wake of the new ISIS scourge, a Belgian chocolate making company now seems to be in the line of fire.

The distress caused due to the rise of ISIS has struck the Belgian chocolate brand of the same name, with the business of the company seemingly suffering due to the name, reported International Business Times.

According to Reuters, the Belgian chocolate maker had only last year changed its name from Italo Suisse because the company no longer had any affiliation to either country.

What is even more unfortunate for the company is the fact that the thought of warm and sweet chocolate melting in your mouth is not the first thing that comes to people’s mind when they hear the name ISIS.

ISIS, an acronym derived for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is a militant group that came to prominence during the Syrian civil war.

“We had international customers saying that they could no longer stock our chocolate as consumers had only negative associations with the name,” marketing manager of the chocolate making company Desiree Libeert told Reuters.

The company, which was founded in 1923, initially chose the name Italo Suisse since the founder Jozef Dequeker had learnt the craft of chocolatiering in Italy and Switzerland but by the year 2013, the management had decided in favour of a name change.

“We chose ISIS as that was the brand name of our pralines and tablets,” remarked Libeert.

The marketing manager lamented the unfortunate coincidence stating that had they known that there was a terrorist organisation by the same name, they would have never named it ISIS.

The company which is known for making premium Belgian chocolates, which are crafted by merging the most advanced production techniques, has now decided to change its name to Libeert, after the family that owns the company.

A similar situation had previously arisen with popular American animated show Archer, when it was forced to drop the name ISIS from the series. The International Secret Intelligence Service, also known as ISIS, on the show had been an integral part of the series until the makers were forced to replace its name with a less notorious acronym.

The acronym has not only been eliminated from its previous five seasons but has also been removed from the show’s merchandise items, such as mugs and caps. “We have a lot of ISIS merchandise. So, I guess that’s all going to a landfill somewhere,” Reed and Thompson, the series creator and producer, respectively, said in an interview.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2014.

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