Spots v Stripes

Greta Hammel

Cadbury’s 2012 Olympics sponsorship has inspired the confectionery giant to launch a €15m campaign to re-ignite the spirit of game-playing nationwide.

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Brand Central

An underwater battle between two teams of intrepid fish – spotty and stripy – is currently unfolding on television screens across the country. As with previous Glass and a Half Full Productions, such as the memorable Gorilla and Eyebrows campaigns, the latest Cadbury advert entitled ‘Spots v Stripes’ is successfully intriguing consumers into learning more, through its trademark less than conventional story-telling manner.

The advertisement’s impressive CGI characters were not just employed for the sake of being visually stunning however. The advertisement forms part of a much larger marketing initiative by Cadbury, which aims to get people of all ages and walks of life to play games again. In fact, Spots v Stripes is the largest marketing campaign Cadbury Ireland has ever launched, with an unprecedented marketing and communications spend of €15 million.

Olympic inspiration

The concept was inspired by Cadbury’s decision to become the Official Treat Provider to the London 2012 Olympic Games. Moreover, Cadbury Ireland is also sponsoring Team Ireland’s efforts. The confectionery giant therefore wanted to develop a programme which reflected the true spirit of the Olympics and game-playing itself.

Cadbury Ireland’s managing director Brian O’Sullivan says: “Spots v Stripes is not about elite sports and large, organised sporting events; this is about having fun. That could be 100 people in a park or just two people in a room playing a simple board game together. The initiative encourages both levels of involvement and is therefore accessible to everybody.”

While having an all-inclusive campaign which aims to involve anyone regardless of their background or age is undoubtedly an inspiring idea, Greta Hammel, head of marketing, Cadbury Ireland, explains more about how the initiative will work in practice.

Greta Hammel

Dynamic digital

The first step involves visiting the website, and signing up as either a spot or stripe. For those who aren’t sure whether their true character is indeed a spot or stripe, they can enter their details online and the website will let them know the team for them. People can then play any type of game they want – with the website supplying various suggestions and online games – and the person who wins logs one point into the website, which contributes to their team’s running national total. It’s not the case that an individual can simply enter as many points as they want however, as their opposition must email the website to verify their win, before the point can be granted.

With the website, alongside Cadbury’s partnership with social networking site Facebook, playing such a key role, it’s not surprising Hammel describes the digital element as “the beating heart” of the campaign.

Brand ambassadors

Public relations will also play a major part in the “360 degree campaign.” Over the next two years, brand ambassadors will go out into communities nationwide with a special toolkit of simple games; to encourage people to join the campaign, and start playing games again.

“In the next couple of months alone, Cadbury’s brand ambassadors will be targeting fifteen universities and colleges around the country across Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway,” says Hammel. “We’re also targeting several events across Dublin and Cork, including ‘Toys 4 Big Boys’.”

What’s more, Cadbury is confident that the brand ambassadors will meet with a positive reception. The company has conducted extensive research into the importance of play across all age groups and is working closely with children’s psychologist and Irish TV presenter David Coleman on this initiative. In fact, Cadbury commissioned a study by Empathy Research, which showed that despite the pressures of today’s environment, the Irish enjoy playing games – on average 73% of participants had played a game within the last week.

Working with and for retailers

Brian O’Sullivan explains that Cadbury has also been working collaboratively with retailers to see how their stores and communities can gain maximum benefit from the Spots v Stripes campaign.

“We’ve already had quite a few meetings with retailers since we launched them about four or five months ago. It’s actually quite exciting because we’ve never really got our customers’ input into a campaign at such an early stage before. I really hope that success at the end of this will have been something that customers have been able to drive their own creative ideas into it.

“Without wanting to break confidence in terms of ideas, some of the ideas that have been developed are far better than anything we would have come up with by ourselves.

“I think there’s been a huge level of engagement from customers right from the beginning and I think that’s because they see the potential of Spots v Stripes, and they see that by working together we can make it into something that delivers for them.”

www.spotsvstripes.com
www.facebook.com/cadburystripes
www.facebook.com/cadburyspots

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