Cadbury – First World War Centenary

Cadbury wanted a media outreach and digital campaign to mark their partnership with the Royal British Legion for the First World War centenary.

How to reach Cadbury’s new target older generation audience following the recent repositioning of the brand to be more purposeful – a world away from their previous position associated with the younger market through famous campaigns such as ‘Joyville’ and drumming gorillas.

In a saturated market of commemorative content how could we give a chocolate brand cut through and a valid voice in the anniversary space?

With falling sales of poppies how could we drive the audience to donate to the Royal British Legion?

Making use of our journalistic skills we researched and found a link between the anniversary and the brand.

Through their extensive archive at Bourneville and further research at the University of Birmingham we unearthed never before told stories of the factory workers and their haunting memories from the front line, alongside the stories of the pioneering women who replaced them in the factories.

To raise the prestige of the Cadbury brand we sourced the photographs of the people in the stories, restored and colourised them. To help the audience identify with these once archived and forgotten photographs we brought them to life through animation.

To engage the older audience we purposely produced longer form content to take them on the journey and immerse them fully into stories.

To integrate and contemporise Cadbury’s charity partner, the Royal British Legion, into the visual campaign we cast beneficiaries of the charity to narrate the stories of the Cadbury employees of 100 years ago.

We gave a purpose to donating by playing to the emotional side of our audience through the thought provoking stories and by linking it to modern day veterans.

We led the creative direction for the cross-agency approach of VCCP, Golin and Carat.

3.3 million total views across YouTube, Apple News and The Telegraph.

The campaign raised over £2m for the Royal British Legion.

Awarded ‘Best Fundraising Campaign’ at the Campaign for Good Awards 2020.

The colourised photographs were distributed exclusively to The Mail Online and The One Show.