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Payday celebrations
Byravee Iyer / Mumbai June 30, 2009, 0:21 IST

The new Cadbury Dairy Milk commercial targets smaller markets where the
company hopes to replace traditional sweets with the chocolate brand.
Cadbury, the countrys top confectioner, has launched another campaign for its
flagship chocolate brand, Cadbury Dairy Milk. The 50-second film opens in an
old office where the cashier gives the protagonist his salary for the month. The
young man breaks into a dance and the rest of the office joins him in no time.
The man proceeds to pay the milkman and doctor on his way out. He then sees
a young child and hands him a Cadbury Dairy Milk.
The scene shifts to his house where his wife is all dressed up to go out for the
evening. Again, amidst song and dance, they leave the house in a taxi. In the
musical interlude, we see the wings and hood of the taxi open and the car
begins to fly.
Cut to a movie theatre with a house-full board. Two men, obviously black ticket
marketers, come out singing and offer the couple tickets for the movie. Inside
the cinema hall, the man presents his wife with a bar of the chocolate. The final
shot shows the entire set with everyone jumping, singing and dancing. All this
to the background score of meetha hain khana, aaj pehli taarikh hain(Lets eat
something sweet, todays the first day of the month).
The positioning is clear. Cadbury Dairy Milk is an inalienable part of any
celebration and adults need not shy away from it. The ambience is middle class
and the set could belong to any town in India. Its attempt at mass appeal is
unmistakable.
Leader of the pack
The stakes for Cadbury, to be sure, are high. It is the undisputed leader in the
Rs 2,000-crore per annum chocolate market and Cadbury Dairy Milk is its
warhorse. Though it is strong in bars (Five Star) and tablets (Cadbury Dairy
Milk), Nestle has made inroads with its light offerings like KitKat and Munch.
The improved health awareness, according to industry experts, has pushed
consumers towards lighter chocolates a trend that will only get stronger in
the days to come.
Cadbury, on its part, has worked on its flagship brand for 15 years now. It all
began in 1994 when the Cadbury Dairy Milk communication first tried to
establish a connection with celebration. The then-famous ad showed a girl
dancing in gay abandon across a cricket field eating a Cadbury Dairy Milk
chocolate to celebrate the victory of her favoured team.
Following the huge success of that campaign, Cadbury decided to address
consumers in small towns and from lower socio-economic categories, while
sticking to the core promise of joy. In 2003, the company aimed to position the
brand as not just an occasion-based chocolate but as more of a casual
consumption habit with the Khush hoon khamakha (Am happy just like that)
commercial.
Then there was a mid-course correction after the worm controversy caught up
with the confectioner. Overnight, its market share slid from 73 per cent to 69.4
per cent. Amitabh Bachchan, the countrys most trusted brand ambassador at
that time, was brought in to assuage the frayed nerves of consumers. At the
same time, it did some improvisation in packaging to ensure that the
chocolates remain safe. Luckily for Cadbury, the move worked and the
company was able to halt the fall in its market share.
Bachchan stayed on even after the controversy died. And the company

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returned to the celebration story board. The next campaign showed the
resident flunky finally clearing his 12th standard exams. The tagline Kuch
meetha ho jaye (Lets have something sweet) underscored the promise.
Another campaign showed a group of people celebrating in spite of Indias loss
in cricket to less-known Kenya. Since then, the company has only built on this
concept.
The new meetha
For several years we have strived to make Cadbury Dairy Milk a permissible
product among adults, which was earlier seen as childrens indulgence. Now
we are trying to plug the meetha aspect of the chocolate and how it is a
suitable replacement to a sweet, explains Cadburys sales and marketing
director, Sanjay Purohit. With each of our advertisements, we try to break
barriers for more and more people to experience the brand.
Purohit claims that the brand campaign has met with success so far. Where
earlier a box of pedas was seen as celebratory, today a few bars of Cadbury
Dairy Milk are seen as a substitute, says he. Studies conducted by the
company indicate that Cadbury Dairy Milks popularity as celebratory
indulgence has grown from near zero in 2003 to 13 per cent in 2007. Thus, it
has decided to stick to the same theme in the latest campaign.
No doubt, the intention here is to grow Cadbury Dairy Milks market share. It is
the largest-selling chocolate in the country with a market share of 34.3 per
cent. However, consumer insight studies carried out by Cadbury revealed that
though it had done a lot around the kuch meetha ho jaaye premise that
involved large-scale celebrations, small groups and small towns had been kept
out. Thus, the brief given to the confectioners creative agency, Ogilvy and
Mather, was to include middle class people from smaller cities in the campaign.
The middle class celebrate their happiness on salary day in a very private
manner, says Purohit.
The idea behind this campaign was to capture moments of happiness and
nothing does that better than salary day. We want Cadbury to own this
particular concept, says Ogilvy & Mather Senior Creative Director Mahesh
Gharath.
As it has become a trademark with most advertisements today, Cadburys TV
commercial will be supported by a 360-degree campaign through print, radio
and on-ground efforts. Further, the company has tied up with HDFC Bank, Axis
Bank and ICICI Bank to send out text messages to account holders on pay
day. The ad is scheduled to run for eight weeks.

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