HISTORY Opening its doors in 1824 at Bull Street, Birmingham, Cadbury’s history is a fascinating study of industrial and social development; it shows how a small family business can be developed into an international giant. The Cadbury family was a prominent member of the Society of Friends or Quakers. Quakers held strong beliefs and ideals that they carried into campaigns for justice, equality and social reform, putting an end to poverty and deprivation. As nonconformists, Quakers were not permitted to enter the universities, which in the nineteenth century were closely linked with the Church.
Entry into the professions was impossible and pacifist principles precluded the military as a career. The energies and talents of Quaker families were, therefore, directed towards business, social reform and the transformation of social and industrial society in Victorian Britain. John Cadbury’s involvement with the Temperance Society had an influence on the direction of his business enterprise. By providing tea, coffee, cocoa and chocolate as an alternative to alcohol, which was believed to be one of the causes of poverty and deprivation amongst working people, he felt that he was helping to alleviate some of the misery.
In 1831, he rented a small factory in Birmingham and became a manufacturer of drinking chocolate and cocoa, the real foundation of the Cadbury manufacturing business. Today, Cadbury is the clear leader in the UK chocolate market with over 50 brands and 350 packaging variations that fulfil every need and occasion. Cadbury began its Indian operations as a trading concern in 1947. With brands like Cadbury Dairy Milk, Gems, 5 Star and Perk –and now additionally with products like Celebrations, Bytes and Temptations Cadbury India Ltd. CIL) today, has become a market leader in the confectionary segment and have a 70 percent market share in chocolates. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk (CDM) is its flagship brand, having a market share of 30% and average daily sales of 1 million bars. MARKET India has a ginormous sweet tooth. It has the world’s second largest population and the world’s largest under-thirties population. The country is also spawning one of the world’s fastest-growing middle-class spenders with surplus incomes. It should, therefore, be a huge natural consumer destination for chocolates.
But market destinies are often guided by ironies. In this case, chocolates are not as simple to sell as the statistics might imply. This is because the domestically-made sweets and confectionery – mithai – market is so huge, so dispersed, so full of variety and so inextricably intertwined with Indian religious, festive and social rituals and occasions, that trying to mass-market chocolates – a foreign food – would equal the task of selling the proverbial refrigerator to the Eskimo.
That Cadbury has entered this forbidding market, has stayed in the chocolate business in India and has dominated it, is a testament to the company’s tenacity, resilience and ingenuity. Compared to the West, per capita chocolate consumption in India is extremely low. While Britain, for instance, consumes eight kilograms per head per year, India consumes just under 100 grams per capita. There are other obstacles as well. Mithais are easily available and usually cooked fresh at every street corner in towns and villages. Chocolates are generally seen as indulgence products.
While the comparative per capita chocolate consumption in India may be pretty abysmal, Cadbury’s performance in this market, however, merits reams of ink and paper. And the credit for this undoubtedly goes to their ability in recognising the shortcomings in their campaign strategies and turning Cadbury into a cult brand! CADBURY DAIRY MILK_ THE INDIAN CHAPTER CDM advertising has always depicted a rich tapestry of human emotions and relationships. In the 1980s, it was positioned as the perfect expression of love captured in the memorable copy ‘Sometimes Cadbury can say it better than words’.
The brand was considered as a surrogate of parental affection for their children where the chocolate goodness (appetite appeal) was being harnessed. The challenge here was to get people accustomed to chocolates- primarily seen as a western taste by reaching out to the masses in a land where mindsets and preferences are as diverse as the country itself. With communication consciously addressing kids, consumption also got restricted within the same segment resulting in brand stagnation.
Therefore, the marketing challenge at this point was to expand the consumer base by making CDM aspirational and desirable to the adult segment. Cadbury India realized that with their positioning of “parental love”, growth was being hindered and consciously made their lead task, to make chocolates acceptable and accessible amongst adults and erase the kiddy connotations. The Unshackling of Dairy Milk in 1994 The communication task at this point was narrowed down to increasing category relevance, thus giving consumers a taste of life, the Cadbury Dairy Milk way – real, fun and free.
They decided to integrate the “real” chocolate of Cadbury Dairy Milk to “real” feelings. Extensive brand audits on the consumer pulse revealed that Cadbury Dairy Milk moments were spontaneous, carefree, special, real moments and channelizing these moments in the mundane life of adults was probably the answer to the brands stagnation! In addition, that period saw the resurgence of India. The era of globalization had sowed the seeds of the ‘I wanna break free’ syndrome where avenues for freedom for expression were more than welcome.
Thus, came in, the ‘Real Taste For life Campaign’ that unshackled the brand by repositioning it to the free-child in every adult. CDM redefined itself as the perfect expression of spontaneous, shared good feelings. The campaign captured moments when people shook off convention and broke free revealing their real selves. By integrating Cadbury Dairy Milk into these moments it gave people the license and encouragement to enjoy CDM without any guilt. The strategy proved a winner and Brand Cadbury grew by over 50% in sales volumes.
The most endearing and memorable ad of this campaign was the one that showed a young girl jumping on to the cricket field and breaking into a jig thus earning Brand Cadbury, ‘The campaign of the century’ award at the Abby’s. However around 1997, there were certain hurdles encountered by Cadbury at the competitive level. The first hurdle included the launch of KitKat by Nestle which was seen as young, trendy, future, exciting and smart. It was also encountering threats from imported premium moulded brands like Lindt, Ritter, and VanHouten.
Along with this, there were certain hurdles encountered at the communication level. Although the “Real Taste of Life Campaign” cut ice with the metro audience, the barriers of Middle/Bottom end consumers still remained to be addressed. As a result, brand growth rate was slower than the chocolate market growth. Therefore, the next phase marked the Indianisation of the brand to increase width of consumption by entering the Indian mind-space by making CDM part of Indian customs and mores. The key was to make CDM, the Real Taste of Everyone’s Life.
Thus, Cadbury came up with the ‘Bahana’ campaign that attempted to address twin platforms. For the regular users, CDM was positioned as the gold standard in taste among chocolates with the underlying creative idea- ‘I will do anything to eat my CDM’. On the other hand, for the infrequent users, CDM was positioned as the chocolate meant for everyone, with the creative idea- ‘You don’t need any special occasion to eat CDM’. The launch of the ‘Khaanein waallon ko khaanein ka bahana chahiye’ campaign helped reposition Cadbury and substantially increase penetration levels.
The campaign was launched in tandem with the award winning ‘Kuch khaas hai…’ campaign. The media strategy was to let the two co-exist towards a common vision: A Cadbury in every pocket. The brand penetrated into smaller towns and sales volumes grew by 40%. Cadbury at this point broke all barriers when they introduced the Rs 5 packs thus increasing their distribution to small scale towns Around 2002, Cadbury’s once again faced competitive challenges with the influx of several brands at various price points offering greater perceived value.
While attitudes towards chocolates softened, consumers now flirted with options. Therefore, the challenge here was to reinforce pre-eminence of the brand. As a result, a new advertising campaign, ‘Khamaka’ was launched with the objective of increasing the ‘tempt value’ of Cadbury Dairy Milk by using the product improvement & new product introductions planned during this season. The campaign thought – ‘The new taste of Cadbury Dairy Milk brings you new found happiness’. They thus began introducing ‘A Cadbury dairy Milk for every need’ with new brands like Cadbury chunky and Bourneville coming in.
Cadbury also began emphasizing on the various sizes it was available in, making it open to home consumption as well as for gifting purposes- ‘Mooh meetha karna’. In India joyous occasions are always celebrated and commemorated with the sharing of sweets. Cadbury’s experience in India had shown that in order to deepen chocolate penetration in the Indian market it must multiply the occasions for consumption in order to compete with local sweets. That marketing vision was what prompted the company to introduce the BIG idea that initiated the shift in its positioning from just a chocolate to a mithai substitute- CADBURY CELEBRATIONS.
Aimed at replacing traditional gifting options like mithai and dry- fruits during festive seasons, Cadbury Celebrations went on to become a popular brand on occasions such as diwali, rakhi. It is also a major success as a corporate gifting brand. The communication is based on the emotional route and the tag line says “rishte pakne do” which fits with perfectly with the brand purpose of strengthening your relationships with something sweet. In October 2003, Cadbury found itself in the eye of a storm, when just a month before Diwali, customers in Mumbai complained about finding worms in Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolates.
Quick to respond, the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration seized the chocolate stocks manufactured at Cadbury’s Pune plant. In October 2003, just a month before Diwali, customers in Mumbai complained about finding worms in Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolates. Quick to respond, the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration seized the chocolate stocks manufactured at Cadbury’s Pune plant. In defence, Cadbury issued a statement that the infestation was not possible at the manufacturing stage and poor storage at the retailers was the most likely cause of the reported case of worms.
However, it did raise several questions about the quality of packaging produced by Cadbury. The heat of negative publicity melted Cadbury’s sales by 30 per cent, at a time when it sees a festive spike of 15 per cent. For the first time, Cadbury’s advertising went off air for a month and a half after Diwali, following the controversy. Consumers seemed to ignore their chocolate cravings. As a brand under fire, in October itself, Cadbury’s launched project ‘Vishwas’ – an education initiative covering 190,000 retailers in key states. But what the company did in January 2004 is what really helped de-worm the brand.
By investing up to Rs 15 Crore (Rs 150 million) on imported machinery, Cadbury’s revamped the packaging of Dairy Milk by introducing the metallic poly-flow which was costlier by 10-15 per cent, but Cadbury didn’t hike the pack price. Simultaneously, Cadbury’s roped in brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan do some heavy duty endorsement putting his personal equity on the line for the brand. During this phase, Cadbury came out with print as well as television ads showing Amitabh Bachchan stating that Cadbury was now safe for consumption.
The company upped ad spends for the Jan-March quarter by over 15 per cent. The recovery began in May 2004, and by June, Cadbury’s claimed that consumer confidence was back. Experts believed that the reason for Cadbury’s success was that it took the crisis head-on. And the consumers were more forgiving, because the brand enjoyed an emotional equity in India. Post the worms’ crisis, with Amitabh Bachchan as Cadbury’s brand ambassador, came in the ‘Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye’ campaign. The most memorable ad in this campaign was the ‘Jab Pappu pass ho jaye kuch meetha ho jaye’ commercial. Pappu pass ho gaya’ actually became a part of street language and contributed in strengthening consumer affinity with the brand proposition of celebrating joyous occasions with CDM. The year also marked the brand’s transformation from just a chocolate to an alternative to sweets. The interactive campaign – a tie-up with Reliance India Mobile service that allowed students to check their exam results using their mobile service and encouraged those who passed their examinations to celebrate with CDM – also bagged a bronze Lion at the prestigious Cannes Advertising Festival 2006 for best use of internet and new media.
In 2005 Cadbury Dairy Milk celebrated 100 years of its existence. To commemorate the occasion, limited edition vintage packs of CDM were launched in India. The latest ads in the series of the Cadbury campaigns revolve around the theme ‘Payday’ – Yet another moment of happiness that life has to offer! This new campaign takes the concept of celebrations to yet another level. With Pappu and Miss Palampur campaign, CDM created a space for itself during the big, community celebration moments.
This commercial keeps the core promise of happiness while introducing another ‘moment of joy’ in one’s life. The new commercial highlights the celebratory occasion of payday, which is an important event in the life of every middle-class Indian. The commercial, depicts the many things that typically happen on payday, but more than that, it captures the infectious happy mood of the man and his family, and in that context, pitches the brand in a compelling manner.
Some innovations were done in the print media as well, including a false jacket done for Mid-Day and frontline ads on Hindustan Times and Lokmat. It has also taken up activities like sending SMS alerts immediately after your salary is in the bank. At this point, there is a major tussle between Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and Nestle’s Munch with the latter creating an ad that spoofs the current Cadbury ad with its tagline, ‘Khao bina tareek dekhe’. BRAND VALUES Cadbury Dairy Milk stands for purity: purity of emotions, feelings and expressions.
Research has shown that not only is the colour purple strongly associated with Cadbury’s, but also the Cadbury logo itself has the highest recognition of any logo among popular consumer brands. The glass-and a half emblem, the corporate purple and the flowing script have all become synonymous with this brand. CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Cadbury’s commits to a green and ethical future The Cadbury Purple Goes Green initiative launched in July 2007 sets a vision to tackle climate change by shrinking their global environmental footprint by cutting the energy use, reducing excess packaging and managing water use.
Pioneering cocoa cultivation in India Since 1974 Cadbury has pioneered the development of cocoa cultivation in India. For over two decades, they have worked with the Kerala Agriculture University to undertake cocoa research and released hybrids that improve the cocoa yield. Their efforts have increased cocoa productivity and touched the lives of thousands of farmers. Hardly surprising then that the Cocoa tree is called the Cadbury tree! Non-formal school set up by Cadbury for children of migrant workers in Baddi
Cadbury has set up a non-formal school as part of our commitment to create prosperous, inclusive and healthy communities in the industrial district of Baddi This is the first phase of Project SAHYOG an 18 month project which commenced in January this year in partnership with an NGO RUCHI. The project reaches out to over 400 poor & marginalized families in Sandholi village near our Baddi factory and apart from education, the other key interventions will be on village health, sanitation, education & water harvesting.
Cadbury in tie-up with Bharti-Walmart to support education needs of underprivileged children Cadbury has tied up with Bharti-Wal-Mart to support the infrastructure of a government school for underprivileged children in Gurgaon. Cadbury spreads smiles at Vatsalya Cadbury India has partnered with Vatsalya Foundation, an NGO working with underprivileged street children in Mumbai where they support the educational needs of 100 street children by proving them with their school fees and also other requirements like books, stationery uniforms etc.
Cadbury India supports the building of a Neo-natal ward In an effort to provide a health start to the newborn infants of the local community in the Thane district, they have also supported the construction of a neo-natal hospital ward at Thane’s municipal hospital. The ward gives specialized and intensive care for premature and critically ill newborns. CONCLUSION Therefore, in conclusion, Cadbury Dairy Milk is one of those few brands that do not leave much room for improvement!
With the 360 degree coverage of all their campaigns, it is an iconic example of how a brand entered a market when it was not ready for the product, prepared it and then went on to become a market leader. Today, Cadbury in the chocolate category enjoys top of the mind recall and is a brilliant example of how a successful shift in positioning only led to the capturing of a larger market. Cadbury in the Indian market today, stands for celebration, zest for life and spontaneity and is one of those rare international brands that have managed to capture the market only through the sheer competence with which the brand was Indianised!
