Gorillas, milk and airports: Cadbury's communication strategy

I'm intrigued by the comms. strategy of Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM) over the last 12 months. They've separated their sausage (product) and sizzle (emotional) messages, using different media channels for each. And each of these parts of the campaign poses some interesting questions. We'll look at the sizzle campaign today. And then the sausage bit in the next post.

1. Sizzle - That advert: sponsored entertainment, or business building campaign?
The emotional component of CDM is, of course, the bloody drumming gorilla. Just in case you've been on a dessert island (with no wireless access) for the last year, the gorilla in question sniffs the air in anticipation before bursting into a an explosion of drumming, to the sounds of "In the air tonight" by Genesis. You can watch it here, or click below: :

When it came out this ad struck me as a classic example of "sponsored entertainment": very entertaining and watchable, but with no product story. The brand appears at the end as the sponsor, rather than the star of the ad. Indeed, the ad even uses the title "A glass and half full production" (a token mention of the nice product truth of each bar having a glass and a half of milk in it.)

Let's look at 5 ways of assessing the effectiveness of the ad:

a) Viral power: no doubting the potency of the ad as a piece of viral marketing. It got 10 million views on You Tube alone. There are 3,386 comments on You Tube. Impressive stuff. And 70 000 people signed up to Facebook Gorilla Groups (some people really do have too much time on their hands....)

b) Brand equity: this is fascinating. Really. At first or even second viewing you don't get much info on the product. You might not even recall the brandname. But the media hoo-ha was so big that this helped explain the ad to the general public! So, I now understand that the Gorilla's drumming is supposed to be "a visual metaphor for the joy of eating a bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk".

c) Sales growth: I would love to see some evidence that proves the ad is really responsible for the increased sales of CDM, which is the PR story from Cadbury: 'Dairy Milk sales in the UK were up in the "low double digits" in the wake of the drumming gorilla advertisements, according to the company's advisers.' This makes a great soundbite, but people in the choc business tell me it has a lot to do with pricing and promotion.

d) Employer branding: no-one talks about this aspect of the Gorilla ad. But I think it has done a lot for the image of Cadbury as a place to work. It has made the company seem more innovative and cutting edge. The CEO, Todd Stitzer even hailed 2007 as "the year of the gorilla". It also did a lot to boost the image of agency Fallon, and the young creative hot-shot behind the ad, Juan Cabral.

e) Campaignability: the last issue is perhaps the most interesting. Was Gorilla a one-hit wonder? Or the start of a big campaign?

The second ad is called "Truck". It also used a 70's/80's track, this time Don't Stop me Now by Queen. This time we have a series of airport vehicles racing down the runway; they look like the trucks from the movie Cars. The agency had a ball. After the super simple Gorilla ad, now we had "a six-night shoot at an airport in Mexico with 140 crew, two 35mm film cameras, two high-definition cameras and one crash-cam." You can see it here, or click below if you are on the blog:

The new ad is much less effective in viral terms, with less than 200,000 You Tube views when I looked. It is more complex, but less effective at getting across the joy of anticipation and tasting of the chocolate. Its less memorable. Here are some of the quotes from the Guardian blog that asked for opinions: "It's all flash and cash."; "This feels like a bit of a misfire"; "A complete flop"; "Nice ad, but I have absolutely no idea what it's supposed to have to do with Cadbury's."

The problem is that because the ad is less viral, it has less impact, and also gets less support from the media to explain what the bloody hell its all about. This suggests that the Gorilla ad was a one-off. In fact, the Gorilla WAS the idea: the execution was bigger than the brand.

The Cadbury marketing director, Philip Rumbol, told the MediaGuardian section that "We could have created Gorilla 2 and had him playing a trumpet. But that would have been too linear. It has to have a slightly enigmatic quality." But perhaps Gorilla 2 is the only way to go if the idea is to be more than a one-hit wonder?

Check in next time to read about the sausage part of the campaign.

Comments

[niall]

hjigiuyfi

[Fergus]

I'm surprised that anyone is surprised that Gorilla, thus far, seems un-campaignable. It was a hit but I don't buy the post rationalisation around it being a "visual metaphor for the joy of eating a bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk". I'd go further and speculate that part of the reason it hasn't been followed up successfully is that it has been post rationalised and the reasons for its success over intellectualised.

Credit to Cadbury's for doing it in the first place... just a shame they didn't realise it was a one hit wonder.
Cheers,
Fergus

[Samer]

Hi David,

What i actually said is "it needed a good idea, which as it seems was not exploited to the fullest." by idea I was mostly talking about the big idea that is able to create campaign after campaign that should be more important than the execution elements (in this case a skillful Gorilla) and transcends it.

This is even more evident in the new truck ad which is supposed to be part of the same "cup & a half of joy" theme... but in reality the link seems quite weak, regardless whether it is as exciting or not...consistency in the big idea is what is actually missing to continue to create the necessary excitement.

NB:I believe that your additional exploitation ideas of the Gorilla character in phase 1 are not really risky, as long as they continue to create excitement around the brand. Actually, releasing a real gorilla in the streets or having a gorilla live concert would have done even a better job.

Cheers

[David Taylor(from Where'sTheSausage)]

Samer: You say "seems (Gorilla) was not exploited to the fullest." The first ad itself was pretty well exploited: the website features it, they even link to all the spoof films.

The risk is that the bloody thing escapes from the zoo, and becomes bigger than the brand...e.g. gorilla masks, promotions, t-shirts, badges...

I think this is what they are worried about.

The bigger issue is, where to go next? everyone wants to see the gorilla part 2. But we got the less exciting trucks.

Where they go next for episode 3 is really interesting ?!
David

[T-Enterprise]

Brilliant advert, even though the product was only the sponsor.

[Samer]

Hey There,

Gorilla is indeed one of the most successful "viral ads" of the year. the ad also had a big success at the Cannes Lions awards.

hearing that this is a one-off campaign is just a shame. Far from the sausage-sizzle dimension, i do believe that there is an idea behind the ad "The wild joy of chocolate" for example, and that the idea should have been shaped further to be able to carry out more execution and perhaps move to a second stage.

With all the clutter around, this ad is definitely will make you stop, watch, and enjoy ( and potentially pick a Cadbury’s bar the next time you are in a store). Cadbury’s is a notorious brand and does not really need to go into the milk and chocolate melting river dimension (sausage) because i think that this was well established over the years. it needed a good idea, which as it seems was not exploited to the fullest.

NB: In my part of the world, Cadbury is a way second player to Mars Inc. and even Ferrero.