Cadbury‘s Dairy Milk is bringing joy from the whirled in a new TV spot promoting one of popular chocolate brand’s three new flavours.
A TV campaign running through April is giving viewers a peek inside the brand’s newly created Cadbury Dairy Milk Joy Department. The 15-second ads show new flavours of confection being “developed” in a raucous office – the Cadbury Joy Department.
In addition to being featured in TV and print ads, the Joy Department exists as an actual unit within Cadbury’s parent company, Kraft Canada. It has a stated mandate of making the iconic chocolate brand as “joyful, fun and yummy as possible.
”Staff members have business cards, new e-mail addresses and a “shared code of conduct,” said brand-manager-turned-lead-joy-strategist Laura Henderson in an interview with Marketing.
The Cadbury brand recently ran a series of appointment notices in the National Post highlighting new appointments such as chief joy officer, national joy orchestrator, director of joyful operations and associate joy officer.
According to Henderson, the Joy Department is a formalization of the joy and imagination that is part of the Dairy Milk brand’s DNA. The department’s mandate, she said, is to bring “joy and fun” to Canadian consumers in unexpected ways.
“We’ve been given a license to think differently, to be creative and to experiment,” she said. “[Consumers] will see that experience come to life in the coming months.”
The Canada-specific initiative was implemented in partnership with Ogilvy & Mather’s Toronto office, with media planning by Jungle Media, buying by MediaVest Canada and social media support from Rocket XL.
Cadbury has also added three new Dairy Milk flavours, bringing the product line to 12. Henderson called the new flavours – Pretzel & Peanut Butter, Toasted Coconut & Cashews, and Honey Roasted Cashews & Hazelnuts – “joyful, inspired combinations” that represent a departure from what the company has done in the past. The new 100-gram bars have been available nationally since January.
Dairy Milk is Kraft/Cadbury’s biggest chocolate brand globally, but its brand equity hasn’t been capitalized on “in the biggest way” in Canada, said Henderson. The company is looking to accelerate the brand’s growth in a highly competitive category, where even a minor change in market share can have significant implications.
According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian chocolate bar market is steady year-round, but “highly fragmented,” with a bar that can capture 4-5% of the market considered successful. Gaps between the top-selling bars, it said, are typically measured in tenths of a share point.
“The chocolate category in general is extremely competitive,” said Henderson. “There’s no one competitor that our prime target. It’s very fragmented, very competitive and very mature,” she said.
