Cadbury Dairy Milk, which has a 50-year history in India, claims it has a 26 per cent market share. However, the brand is targeting to achieve a 20 per cent increase in volume sales by year-end.
A key part of the initiative includes repackaging products and launching Cadbury Dairy Milk Chunky, a younger version of the Dairy Milk brand.
Chunky comes in trendy tube-packs to appeal to the youth segment.
Cadbury also changed the formula of its dark chocolate brand - Bournville - cutting back on its sweetness to appeal to the Indian consumer. Cadbury's general manager for marketing, Sanjay Purohit, handled the relaunch campaign.
Simmi Sabhaney, vice-president, servicing at Ogilvy & Mather, said: "Cadbury is an iconic brand in India. The point of the relaunch is to make it relevant to all groups of society - from kids to adults or the classes to the masses - it should be equally relevant to everyone."
She added that Cadbury had been expanding its consumer base from young children to adults since 1994 when it launched the 'Real taste of life' campaign. By 1998, the chocolate brand began significantly shifting its marketing efforts to legitimise the mass consumption of chocolate by targeting the adult segment.
While this gave the brand initial volume, by the end of last year, stagnation set in. This was attributed to disinterest among the brand's 'loyalists' - children and teenagers. Cadbury's research showed consumers felt the brand had stopped communicating with them. And, unlike other 'impulse foods' such as soft drinks, consumers felt the Dairy Milk brand no longer made headlines and "had nothing new to say".
During the last four years, the company had geared its advertising to giving consumers an excuse to buy the brand. However, the new campaign goes further to say "you don't need an excuse to eat chocolates".
"The brand found that people didn't just eat chocolates when they were happy, but also when they were sad. The advertising took on the proposition that Cadbury Dairy Milk was like a true friend - always by your side through ups and downs, said Sabhaney. The campaign includes US$1.2 million on television advertising, as well as print, outdoor, radio and below-the-line activities. The two TVCs focus on relationships and highlight the "joy of sharing true emotions".
One execution is a Bollywood-style boy-meets-girl scenario, while the second is based on a father and son relationship. "The father-son ad is interesting as it is a role reversal with the son coping with not only his disappointment, but also his father's. Both storylines appeal to two sets of people, yet both show the relationship Cadbury has with consumers and the way consumers see this friendship."
Carat handled media on the account.
