A Case Study on Cadbury’s Award Winning Gorilla Ad Campaign
February 2006 — Cadbury Shweppes had a great last year as it turned in its best sales performance in more than a decade last year overtaking the arch-rival Mars as the world’s leading confectionery group.
Little did Cabury know that their one of the biggest biggest challenges was lurking right around the corner.
June 2006 — Cadbury decides to recall more than a million chocolate bars from the shelves amid fears that they may be contaminated with salmonella. Not only this but an increase in price of raw materials and a “healthy eating” trend already had a significant impact on the UK confectionery market.
What led to the contamination?
This contamination was caused by a leaking pipe at Cadbury’s Marlbrook plant, near Leominster, Herefordshire and this was discovered in January with samples sent to an independent laboratory where a rare strain of salmonella was identified.
The FSA (Food Standards Agency) advised the people not to consume the products as they were carrying out an investigation.
37 people in the UK were affected due to the consumption of Cadbury products between February to June.
IMPACT -
Cadbury’s British chocolate sales fell by as much as 14% over the following four weeks. It costed Cadbury £20 Million .
The Cadbury’s brand image took a big hit. Worldwide confectionery sales rose by 3.4% but would have been ahead by 5% had it not been for the product recall.
GETTING THE LOVE BACK -
April 2007 — Cadbury had always tried to keep a strong association with milk, with slogans such as “a glass and a half of full cream milk in every half pound” and advertisements that feature a glass of milk pouring out and forming the bar.
Cadbury’s hands Fallon (an agency) a project development brief under the Dairy Milk brand and set a challenge with a clear and concise brief “Get the love back”.
When the director Juan Cabral initially pitched the Gorilla ad to his superiors, they said: ‘Let’s get this right. You want to make an ad that’s three times longer than a normal ad, has got no Cadbury’s chocolate in it and there’s no message?’”
AD LAUNCH -
31 August 2007 — The Gorilla ad was aired during the finale of the eighth series of Big Brother.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo
BREAKING DOWN THE AD-
The ad starts with displaying the In house production name “A Glass and a Half Full PRODUCTION” with the classic two glasses pouring milk logo of Cadbury.
If you watch the ad, you’ll find that In the whole ad there’s no product placement except in the end for 3 seconds. The ad just gives clues starting from the “a GLASS and a HALF FULL PRODUCTION “ screen with its strong reference to previous Cadbury slogan and the purple colour of the screen to the purple backdrop behind the drum kit.
The whole concept of the ad built not around the concept of what Cadbury is but what it represents…the feeling of happiness. The anticipation of joy until you take that bite is represented perfectly with the gorilla waiting for the big moment of the classic Drum riff of Phil Collins’ song In The Air Tonight.
THE RESPONSE –
OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE. The campaign was a success. The ad went viral. On launch night the video was also released on YouTube with 100,000 hits the following day.
The ad was such a huge hit that Wonderbra decided to create a spoof which also went viral but was taken down after few days due to copyright infringement. ( I think that ad would have created a massive uproar if it got released now
)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-3kW0wEQIQ
Cadbury’s stopped the decline in sales and market share and sales. In the months after the transmission it regained and exceeded the lost 5% in the previous 12 months.
Fallon and the advertisement won a clutch of awards, including the top prize at Cannes Lions, the advertising industry’s biggest celebration, in 2008.
I don’t know about anyone else but watching this ad does bring a sort of smile across my face.
“A brand needs to go to the heart and not to the brain.”
- Juan Cabral