Cadbury's "'Glass & A Half Full" Campaign

Cadbury’s are desperately in need of some decent marketing. As has been pointed out elsewhere (http://blog.johnbillett.com/2007/06/20/cadbury-gets-it-plain---dairy-milk--wrong-again--again.aspx) their recent track record in marketing isn’t the most successful and it appears to have been that way for a little while now.

On Friday, they launched a new campaign and this time I’m wondering if they’ve gone nuts or they are onto something truly great.



This is what Cadbury’s say about the campaign – “Drumming gorillas, Phil Collins and Glass And A Half Full Productions? Well it just seemed like the right thing to do. There's no clever science behind it - it's just an effort to make you smile, in exactly the same way Cadbury Dairy Milk does. And that's what we aim to continue to do; simply make you smile. So if a drumming gorilla's not enough, wait until you see what else we have up our sleeves. Sign up if you're curious...”

OK – I’m curious to know where this is all going. According to Creative Review (http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/cadburys-dairy-milk-gorilla/) the film comes from Juan Cabral, the director of the Sony “Balls” commercial. It appears that there is more and Comparing this commercial to their previous effort is like comparing a 20 yr old single malt with generic 89p lager – the generic lager is pap consumed simply because it’s there whilst the whisky isn’t to everyone’s taste but will resonate with those who appreciate these things. The big question of course is whether this “Glass and a Half” message will resonate.

On the strength of what I’ve seen so far, I’m a sceptic but impressed that they are trying something different. Clearly their current marketing strategy hasn’t been working but whether this campaign marks a real turnaround is anyone’s guess. Maybe this is a bit like the Vodafone “April showers” campaign that I highlighted previously (see http://marketing-works.blogspot.com/2007/06/will-new-vodafone-campaign-add-do-more.html) – wonderful creative idea waiting for someone to finance it. Let’s wait and see – I’d love to be proved wrong. I’ll let you know what I get via e-mail having signed up.