The bear and his biscuits

Does the phrase Dum-de-doo mean anything to you?
It was once so well known that 162,000 of us were fans. But now the ‘person’ whose catchphrase it was is vanishing..
Cookie Bear was so familiar to us as the mascot for Griffins Biscuit and whose face and polka dot bow tie was on all the Griffins biscuits.
But he has been around for longer than we think.
In the 1930s, Cadbury took over Hudsons - a chocolate and biscuit company here in New Zealand - inheriting the well known biscuit brand that had already been around a while.
In the 1970s, Don Donovan from the advertising firm Carlton-Carruthers du Chateau Ltd thought up the idea of the bear and it was all uphill from there.
Donovan himself has said he developed the idea first for television - with the first two commercials in black and white. It also included the bear’s deep voice and the dum-de-doo phrase that would go on to be his trademark.
He was loved by children and their mums and Donovan said he quickly took on a life outside of the biscuits, becoming a brand in his own right.
Donovan said the foundation for Cookie Bear’s success was through the Cookie Bear club - that 162,000 of us joined.
Children from all around New Zealand wrote letters to the bear, which went to an internal address at Cadbury who employed four women to handle them, Donovan wrote in his blog. Every child got a card on their birthday.
There were of course the uses in advertising, a children’s book written about the bear, soft toys and later a lawsuit for breach of copyright.
Of all the biscuits Cookie Bear was associated with, it was the chocolate chip cookies that he was most remembered for.
In 1989, Hudson’s was incorporated into Griffins and slowly Cookie Bear began to fade as a brand ambassador.
Now, Cookie Bear is gone (except for the pic we managed to take in a supermarket) as he is removed from branding.
Griffins announced in April that it was going to refresh its branding and packaging and that means the bear we all grew up seeing will vanish.
He will stay only on the packet for the Cookie Bear mini bear biscuit snack packs.
So goodbye Cookie Bear. Usually we finish our stories with where a person is buried but unless someone knows where the bear suit someone used to wear is, he is only now in our memories.​