Cadbury Ireland has launched its biggest ever marketing campaign with a €15 million spend aimed at getting people of all ages and walks of life to play games again. Young and old, people in villages and in towns, able-bodied and disabled people will be encouraged to play games and challenge each other.
Cadbury has conducted research into the importance of play, and game-playing in particular, across all age groups and is working closely with children’s psychologist David Coleman. The chocolate company is the official treat provider to the London 2012 Olympic Games.
As a result of this sponsorship, Cadbury wanted to develop a programme to reflect the spirit of the games and game-playing itself. What emerged was Spots v Stripes. The game invites everyone to divide into two teams – either Spots or Stripes – and play any type of game to score points towards an overall national team total. The game will run until 2012, but Cadbury hopes the legacy of playing will last much longer.
Spots v Stripes will be the biggest programme ever undertaken in Cadbury’s history and the company has embarked on an integrated marketing campaign involving sponsorship, advertising, digital, PR, events, CSR and sales promotion channels. Irish agency partners include Carat, Publicis QMP and Ogilvy One. The PR is handled by MCsquared, part of Murray Consultants.
London-based agency Fallon created the new TV commercial. Featuring two teams of fish characters, one spotty and one stripey, the film shows a dramatic underwater game unfolding between the two teams. The CGI characters for the film were created by the Moving Picture Company over eight months and placed on a coral reef backdrop in Egypt.
Fallon developed the other well-known Cadbury Dairy Milk ads, including Gorilla, Airport and Eyebrows. The campaign website is www.spotsvstripes.com Cadbury has been running a colleague and ambassador engagement programme since May. Over 5,000 people have already played and can be seen in action on two dedicated facebook pages, www.facebook.com/cadburyspots and www.facebook.com/csadburystripes
