“It is such a counterpoint to the advertising noise that’s out there with a really simple, emotional, heartfelt story finding magic in the ordinary,” explained Jonathan McCarthy, head of global brand for Cadbury.
Despite being with the brand for the last 2 1/2 years, this was McCarthy’s first brief to the creative team, and he explained the idea was to “innovate with the formula” that had already been established. There was also a change of directors when Revolver’s Steve Rogers was brought in.
The change in direction will see the campaign begin to explore different relationships, with “Garage” touching on generosity within a familial relationship between father and daughter and another spot that will look outside of the family.
Explaining how the brand is able to resonate internationally and regionally, McCarthy said that the creative is slightly altered to “use the language fabric of the nation” in which each iteration runs while focusing on generosity as a global theme. That means reshooting each campaign with a different market in mind and “reimagining” the script where necessary.
“We decoded all of the previous work with Kantar to see what we learned, but that is the same from all of the work we do around the world to understand the types of stories, relationships, connections that have the most meaning and what we can learn from them,” McCarthy said, adding, “They iteratively fuel each other.”
One of the key measurements used for each of Cadbury’s campaigns focuses on “bringing people together,” and it is “deliberately a collective brand” that is about community. The second measurement focus is “a taste I love,” which uses the nostalgia of the enjoyment of eating chocolate to create a connection with the consumer.
“The chocolate that you grew up with, the connection to the nation in which you live and the role that that chocolate has played in your life and in your relationships is fundamental to that creating a connection,” Hutchingson outlined alongside the power of taste to generate emotion.
“Tastes are built on memory. Getting somebody to believe that the taste of a product is better than anything else is often more based on emotion and personal experience and memory than it is on rational things like the classic melting of the chocolate or the swirling of the chocolate. The real lived experience of chocolate versus the hyperbolic, unreal world of chocolate.”
