Iconic Confectionary Campaigns We Like a Choco-lot

We love chocolate. We also love digital marketing.

Mix the two together and we find ourselves with a timeline of some of the best, most iconic, marketing campaigns that all come from our favourite chocolate brands…. Just in time for World Chocolate Day!

Milkybar: The Milkybar Kid

Since 1961, the Milkybar Kid has been a key feature of Nestle’s advertising for their infamous white chocolate bar. The first Milkybar kid advert was so popular that sales increased by almost 50% over the three years that followed. As a result, Nestle decided to stick with this marketing strategy and ever sincle scouted young blonde boys with cheesy grins to be the main star for their ads. In 2010, the brand had it’s ‘largest ever re-marketing push’ which saw adults play the Milkybar kid, encouraging consumers to upload their own impersonation with the chance for five of them to star in the adverts.

Why was it such a success? 
Nostalgia marketing is a simple but strong strategy. Leveraging an audiences feelings, helps evoke feelings of trust, comfort and loyalty to a brand. And who doesn’t have fond childhood memories of wishing they were a cowboy?

Yorkie: Not for Girls

Yorkie was launched in 1976 to take on female-targeted brands such as Cadburys’ Dairy Milk, who’s chocolate bars were much slimmer in size and in more ‘femininely’ coloured packaging. Early advertising of the chocolate bar opted for straplines such as “Don’t feed the birds,” “Not available in pink,” and “King size not queen size” in 2002. The “It’s not for girls” line and the no women sign were removed from the packaging in 2012 and replaced with the slogan: “Man fuel for man stuff.”

Was it successful?

It might not be for everyone but Yorkie has tried to stick to its guns and although the branding has evolved the bar has always been targeted at men ever since its inception. Their ‘it’s not for girls’ advertising campaign evolved in 2006 when they released a version in pink wrapping for women but it wasn’t until about 2011 that they dropped the controversial slogan. However this is what everyone remembers Yorkie for and many still remember it. So was it a success?

Cadbury: Gorilla

Back in 2007, the nation witnessed one of the most iconic adverts to date: a gorilla playing the drums to the Phil Collins hit ‘In the Air Tonight’. Not only an award winner, the ad went down so well that it helped Cadbury bounce back from the salmonella scare and marketing nightmare of the year before, boosting sales by 9%. High expectations were sets as the ad was tasked with restoring the nation’s love for Cadbury’s chocolate. The ad was an instant hit and by the end of the first weekend had gained 250,000 views on YouTube in fact in 2018, 24% of people still selected it as their favourite ad in Marketing Week

Is this the best marketing comeback?

A 90-second advert, with no dialogue and no product shown…. on paper it sounds like a marketing nightmare but 12 years later it’s still talked about amongst the best adverts of all time so we’d say it was choc-tastic!

Looking to sweeten up your social campaigns? Get in touch with us today and see what we can do for you.