Cadbury has not been doing well in the confectionery market recently. It has had to separate its Cadbury and Schweppes sections of the company into too separate branches because, as I understand the company was not doing well. The two companies have de-merged into Cadbury and the Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. This was done in a hope to increase the companies value, and allowed for the ability to focus on their own sections of the market, in Cadbury's case the confectionery market.
When ever a company undergoes restructuring in the hope to boost profits or company value, very often the advertising budget is cut in a hope to scale back costs. However, time and time again this has proved to be drastically detrimental. Cadbury have not taken this route. Instead tonight I witnessed two of their televisions advertisements.
The first, a very realistic Gorilla (one hopes not a real one) playing a drum kit to 80's rock... the second was of different airport machinery, drag racing down a runway again to 80's rock. The tag line 'A glass and a half full of joy'. Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture here? This advertisment did not leave me yearning for chocolate or leave me feeling even a little joy, mainly just confusion. I have not been in the country for a year so at first I did not realise that, even worse, this Gorilla advertisment was first brought out in August 2007. Why are they still running it? Has it had some monumental cult following?
This advertisement to Queen's "Don't stop me now' is a minute and a half long, a lot of time when considering a television advert, and the reason behind the length? Inexplicable!
My biggest problem is that Cadbury's chocolate is so strongly branded that to try to get away from that at this crucial period seems ludicrous. Especially when they have so dramatically departed with the visuals and content of the advertisements, but to keep the old slogan of 'glass and a half'.
I would love to hear your opinions on this one!
(I have just been on the Creative Review Website while researching the Mighty Boosh Book, and there's a post about the Cadbury's advertisement. Both advertisment's have been overseen by the creative director of Fallon! Although it does say something about an inside joke from Big Brother, which I don't watch. So maybe I'm not getting it at all, but I couldn't believe it when they wrote 'they do smack slightly of Cadbury trying to ‘milk’ the success of the original spots'. The originals were a success? )
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2 comments:
Yeh I know how you feel about the Cadbury adverts, especially the latest release. I commented about this on my blog also and I was informed that a Karaoke task from big brother relates to the latest one. This ad was aired for the first time in the BB final but as I did not watch it either it just puzzled me.
Am I the only one who was sad enough to know it was for Cadbury's straight away due to the colour of purple in the background behind the Gorilla? I was a big fan of the Gorilla ad, but think the new choice of music behind it doesn' t suit it as well, and think now it is slightly over done. I think the abstract outcome was to try and get people to remember the joy behind the brand rather than directly trying to match and better its competitors... but maybe I am wrong!
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