Mackintosh's was a British confectionery firm that was principally known for Mackintosh's Toffee and for brands such as Quality Street, Rolo, Carmac and Toffee Crisp The firm was founded by John Mackintosh and his wife Violet, who bought a pastry shop in Halifax, West Yorkshire with their joint savings of £100 in 1890. In order to attract customers they decided to sell a special toffee. Violet developed a recipe which blended the traditional, brittle English butterscotch with soft, American caramel and they sold the toffee as Mackintosh's Celebrated Toffee. The toffee's was so successful that it "ultimately transformed popular understanding of the term ‘toffee’, previously a description of any sugar or boiled sweet". Mackintosh understood the power of marketing and publicity. He began with handbills advertising Mackintosh's Celebrated Toffee as a weekend treat targeting the Saturday afternoon market when workers had a half-holiday and their weekly wage payment in hand. By 1896 Mackintosh was calling himself the "Toffee King" and his product "The King of All the Toffees". In 1902 the firm began consumer and coupon competitions and then national press marketing: the firm bought space in the Daily Mail, Britain's most popular mass newspaper, and used story lines, graphics, and cartoons, when his competitors limited themselves to wordy descriptions. A series of surreal Heath Robinson cartoons of "Toffee Town" began a memorable national newspaper marketing campaign and Halifax became known as "Toffee Town". Mackintosh re-entered the United States market but by 1931 it entered into an agreement with another Yorkshire company whose Toronto subsidiary manufactured its toffees on a royalty basis and exported them over the border to the United States.
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