Cadbury Dairy Milk: Getting India to love chocolate -

Cadbury Dairy Milk's growth story of 2004-2011

Nirav Parekh and Ganapathy Balagopalan
Source: WARC Prize for Asian Strategy, Highly Commended, 2012
Downloaded from WARC

Between 2000 and 2004, Cadbury Dairy Milk’s growth rate had dropped by 78% versus the previous
four year period. Therefore, it needed a campaign that would increase the rate of sales growth, but
faced difficulties as parents were discouraging sweet consumption amongst their children and
chocolate was primarily seen as being ‘for kids.’ The campaign sought to make chocolate an
alternative to traditional Indian sweets, known as ‘meetha’, which were consumed by all ages. It was
promoted primarily on TV and supplemented with radio, outdoor, digital and point-of-sale activity. The
campaign grew sales volume from 3% to 23% within seven years of launch.

Nirav Parekh and Ganapathy Balagopalan

Campaign details
Brand owner: Cadbury India
Agencies: Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai
Brand: Cadbury Dairy Milk
Country: India
Channels used: Events and experiential, Games and competitions, Internet - display, Internet - general,
Magazines - consumer, Mobile and apps, Newspapers, Outdoor, out-of-home, Point-of-purchase, in-store
media, Print - general, unspecified, Product and other sampling, Social media, Television
Media budget: Over 20 million

Executive summary
This case shows how Cadbury reinvented the very essence of a product so that it became something different,
and unlocked brand growth for Cadbury Dairy Milk.
This was accomplished by transposing culture codes that got consumers to view a familiar product in a new light
– it became a new product, generating a new desire to purchase. The most interesting part of this strategy was
that this was accomplished without making any changes to the product.

The scale of the success is remarkable. This case will show how the campaign grew the business from 3% to
23%within seven years of the campaign launch.

Market background and business objectives

Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM) had been present in India since 1948, and over the years it had grown to become an
iconic brand. CDM is a part of sweet childhood memories for millions of Indians.

It is no surprise then that Cadbury Dairy Milk has always been the leading chocolate brand in the country, even
in the face of tough competition posed by national and international players. In fact, the name 'Cadbury' is often
used to refer to the very category itself. For most Indians, Chocolate = Cadbury = Cadbury Dairy Milk.

While the 1990s were kind to CDM, by the early 2000s the growth of the category, and that of the brand, had
slowed down considerably. Between 2000 and 2004, CDM's growth rate dropped by 78% versus the previous
four-year period from 1996 to 2000.

(Source: AC Nielsen Sales Data)

CDM's growth was running out of fuel and the pressure would soon be on the company. CDM accounted for
over half of Cadbury India's chocolate revenue in 2004, and thus Cadbury India's fortunes (profitability) was tied
to CDM's sales growth. In comparison, its nearest competitor, Nestlé Munch, was less than 10% of Nestlé India
in 2004.

Growth however, would not come easy for CDM. It was already the leading brand in the chocolate category with
a 31% value share. When teamed up with Cadbury India's other brands, the value share was nearly 65%.
Attacking competition brands that made up for the other 35% would hardly make up for the slowing growth rate.
Bigger measures would be required to boost the growth of Cadbury Dairy Milk in India.

The business objective was to increase the rate of sales growth.

Insight and strategic thinking
How do we grow the chocolate category?

The two obvious alternatives for us were:

Get existing consumers to eat more chocolate

Get new consumers to eat chocolate fairly regularly.

But it seemed both these alternatives held limited potential, and would not provide the boost we needed for the
following reasons:

Behaviour

Parents were discouraging sweet consumption amongst their children. Chocolates and candies were seen as
harbingers of tooth and cavity problems amongst our primary consumer base. Hence, excessive consumption of
sweet stuff was actively discouraged by most parents, teachers and dentists.

So getting kids to eat more chocolate, or getting adults to gift more chocolate to kids, would prove to be very
difficult.

Imagery

Chocolate was strongly seen as being 'for kids'; hence adults wouldn't want to be seen consuming it. Chocolate
brands in India had, for years, offered chocolate as a treat to kids, as it was felt it was easier to develop a new
taste with kids rather than with tradition-bound adults. But over time, this approach had led chocolate to become
an occasional foreign treat for kids. As people grew up, they grew out of chocolate.

When Cadbury Dairy Milk tried to expand its consumer base by appealing to 'the child inside every one of us'
and inviting adults to give in to their chocolate cravings, it did lead to some success. However, it went on to
reinforce the imagery of 'chocolate is for kids'. Penetration amongst teens and adults was still abysmal.

(Source: Cadbury data – listing studies, 1995, 2002. Note: Frequency of consumption is yearly)

Considering that adults and teens were greater in number, and would have a lot more money compared to kids
to spend on chocolate, the potential provided by this consumer segment was huge. Hence, CDM resolved to
make another effort at selling chocolate to this consumer segment.

The marketing objective then was to increase chocolate penetration amongst teens and adults.

The communication challenge was obvious – counter the 'for kids' imagery of chocolate. To allow for that, CDM
needed to be seen by adults and teens in a very different light. Chocolate would have to be communicated not
as an indulgence, but as something else.
To explore our options, and look for new triggers for chocolate consumption, we set out to understand the food
product that came closest to our category – traditional Indian sweets called 'meetha' (or 'mithai' in Hindi).

The logic was simple, it was not that people stopped consuming all sweet stuff completely as they grew up, but
chocolate was being replaced by something else – meetha. And considering the size of the meetha (sweets)
market, we were sure that traditional Indian sweets were consumed for many more reasons than simple
indulgence.

Size of the traditional meetha (sweets) market was more than 19 times that of chocolate (valued at
approximately US$4.2bn, while chocolate was merely about US$215m1).

(Source: Cadbury estimates, 2004)

If we could make chocolate a worthy alternative to traditional Indian sweets, we would strike gold!

Our communication objective was to place chocolate into the consideration set of the traditional sweets market.

To do this, we attempted to understand why we were not considered for traditional meetha-eating occasions, by
mounting an ethnographic research of sweet consumption behaviour. This exploration led us to a defining
strategic discovery.

Difference in cultures and cultural perspectives of happiness between the east and the west was the crucial link
to understanding the differences in sweet consumption behaviour, and its implications for communication.

The west has a strong belief in independence and the autonomy of the self (individualism). The self is believed
to be the centre of thought, action and motivation; and happiness is to be found in personal striving and
fulfilment of desires. Chocolate was mostly a private craving, a means of self-pleasure. A lot of chocolate
advertising, such as Cadbury Gorilla, Dove and Galaxy campaigns, reflected this individualistic cultural
perspective of happiness.

In sharp contrast, happiness in India is 'collective'.

In East Asian cultures, the self-in-relationship-with-others (collectivism) is the locus of thought, action and
motivation. Consequently, happiness tends to be defined in terms of interpersonal connectedness and
realisation of social harmony.

This connects strongly to sweet-consumption behaviour and occasions in India. Most happy occasions tend to
be collective and are ritually accompanied by meetha consumption. Festivals, celebrations and traditions/cultural
markers of anticipated happiness (child birth, success in exams, starting a new business, etc) are never in short
supply!
One could argue that it is not as if people in the West do not celebrate such happy occasions together, but
surely there is no ritual mandating sweet consumption? Only in India does a sweet (meetha) perform the role of
a happiness ritual.

In conclusion:

Chocolate = self indulgence

Meetha =a shared happiness ritual

In hindsight, we realised that as a consequence of its western heritage, much of CDM's communication in India
before 2004 reflected these western, individualistic happiness codes and was therefore not considered for
meetha-consumption occasions.

This understanding of how 'meetha' was different from 'chocolate' was at the heart of our new strategy.

We decided to realign chocolate (CDM) as meetha in order to get a share of meetha occasions.

In our communication, we invited consumers to celebrate moments of happiness, and offered CDM as the
meetha to be eaten and shared to celebrate these occasions.

Creative solution

If we had to make Cadbury Dairy Milk synonymous with meetha, we needed the word 'meetha' to become
synonymous with the brand.

Traditionally, people sweeten other people's mouths when something good happens to them or when they want
to wish another happiness. Festivities and celebrations are its natural setting and this practice is popularly
captured by the Indian/Hindi phrase:'Muh meetha karna'.

So we made this more actionable by reinventing it, and our CDM advertising signed off with an invitation: 'Kuch
Meetha Ho Jaaye!' –a call to have something sweet.

Implementation, including creative and media development

Turning the 'Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye' invitation into advertising

A conscious choice was made to use the phrase in the context of celebratory moments, thereby giving our target
audience both the rationale and the occasions for consumption.

However, we steered away from traditional or religious occasions where a particular traditional meetha or mithai
(sweets) had specific significance, and was therefore not substitutable.

Instead we chose modern Indian celebratory occasions, and created interesting executions around these by
injecting twists and humour into the occasions. This made the brand more engaging, allowed for easier
acceptance and, most importantly, shook off the 'for kids' image of chocolates and Cadbury Dairy Milk.

This is more than evident from all of our 'Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye' executions, such as:

Pappu Passing Exams (2005) – a twist on the usual story of celebrations that ensue when the underdog
(for which Pappu is an endearing term in Hindi) eventually passes his matriculation examinations after
umpteen attempts
Miss Palampur (2006) – a tongue-in-cheek story of celebrations that ensue after the bovine heroine of our
commercial (Radha) wins a beauty contest for bovines – such contests do happen in rural India!
Kenya (2008) – is the story of a cricket match in which the result goes wrong, but it still ends in
celebrations
Pay Day (2009) – a celebration of the day when most middle-class Indians receive their monthly salary.
This campaign cleverly introduced 12 new 'occasions' every year, in order to persuade the middle-class
Indian to eat CDM more often
Shubh Aarambh (2010) and In-home Meetha (2011)– these sought to introduce inflection points in the
growth curve of Cadbury Dairy Milk
a. Shubh Aarambh (2010) – was CDM's effort to go beyond celebrations, and it used a traditional Indian
practice of eating something sweet as a good-luck charm before starting something new
b. In-home Meetha (2011) – went even further beyond occasion-based consumption, and sought to get
CDM stocked in people's homes. The campaign drew from the insight that for most Indians, a meal
without meetha is incomplete.

CDM tone of voice

Meetha not chocolate

Collective not individual
Relevance (occasion) not just a feeling
Indian/Hindi not English

Media logic

Given that we were targeting the masses, it was important to reach a wide audience. TV proved to be the most
efficient medium for this. For all of the campaigns, TV was the lead medium of advertising, with 80-90% of
investment put into it. The rest of the investments were spread across radio, outdoor, digital and POS, with the
objective of maximising impact and driving engagement with consumers.

Communications history since 2005

Consistency of the 'KMHJ' proposition over the last seven years has helped CDM become 'meetha'.

Performance against objectives

Recap

Business objective:Increase the rate of sales growth

Marketing objective:Increase chocolate penetration amongst teens and adults
Communication objective:Place chocolate in the consideration set of the traditional sweet (ie celebrations)

Results summary
These campaigns became famous and were:

The highest campaign recalls across chocolate brands over the seven years
Part of the 'Buzziest Brands' list every year from 2006 to 2012
The third most watched YouTube channel for 2011

Campaign popularity led to the brand becoming popular as 'meetha', and:

Created a new chocolate occasion – 'Celebrate a happy moment'

Grew preference for CDM on celebratory occasions by 34% (large towns) and 40% (small towns)
Established preference for CDM when 'starting something new' (Shubh Aarambh campaign)
Got CDM to be associated with being consumed after dinner(In-home meetha campaign).
Leading to more people eating CDM:

Penetration amongst adults grew from 59% (2002) to 92% (2011)

Penetration amongst teens grew from 72% (2002) to 96% (2011).

Leading to business growth for CDM:

20% volume growth over seven years

26% value growth over seven years
Fastest-growing chocolate brand over seven years.

Detailed results
Campaigns became famous, and much enjoyed:

CDM campaigns enjoyed the highest recalls across all brands advertised during the seven-year period.2

"Cadbury's buzz definitely emanates from its advertising,"reads 'India's Buzziest Brands' list compiled by
afaqs.com, India's largest website on advertising and the media industry. Cadbury has consistently been in the
top 20 brands from 2006 to 2012, and has climbed up the ranks over the years3.

The 2012 report said: "In a list dominated by digital and mobile brands, Cadbury was the only FMCG brand in
the Top 10."

People chose to see and share the campaign:

On YouTube, CDM's 'Shubh Aarambh' [2010] and 'In-home' [2011] campaigns have been viewed more than one
and 1.2 million times respectively.4 This led to Cadbury India's YouTube channel becoming the third most
watched YouTube channel in India in 20115.

On Facebook too, Cadbury Dairy Milk is more popular than its competitors. While Nestlé Munch does not have a
presence on Facebook, Nestlé Kit Kat has fewer likes and fewer people talking about it compared to CDM.6

Campaign popularity led to the brand becoming popular as 'meetha'

Cultural popularity

The sign-off line 'Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye' got used by many newspapers and websites as a headline for articles
on sweets, sugar, chocolate, etc. Not just that, a 2005 Bollywood movie used the line as its title. Even the lines
used in the sub-campaigns got mashed up and used in newspaper headlines.

Impact was seen at a personal level, too. The strong 'celebrations' connect with Cadbury Dairy Milk led to trends
like using the packaging of CDM as a wedding invitation card.

Impact seen in brand track results

The campaign created a new need state hitherto unheard of – the need to celebrate happy moments.7
'Celebrate a happy moment' emerged as a significant need state over 2004- 2007.

Even for individual celebratory occasions, preference for Cadbury Dairy Milk across all TGs saw a big increase
from 2004 to 2007 – an average of 34% in large towns and even higher at 40% in small towns8.

In 2010, within a year of the Shubh Aarambh campaign going on air, eating chocolate when 'starting something
new' received high acceptability amongst teens, and moderate acceptability amongst adults.
(Source: TNS Brand Tracking Study 2010)

Further, of these 86% teens and 79% adults preferred CDM as the chocolate brand for starting something new.9

In 2011, within nine months of the 'In-home meetha' campaign going on air, 76% of adults and 84% of teens
associated CDM with 'to be consumed after dinner'. For a campaign that asked consumers to adopt a new food
habit, this association says a lot about its success.

Leading to more people eating chocolate (CDM)

Penetration of chocolate10 grew tremendously during the seven years of the campaign. By 2011, it was over
90% for both teens and adults segments.

(Source: Listing Studies – 1995, 2002 and 2011)

In 2011, we also saw a 25% increase in home stocking of chocolates following our 'In-home meetha' campaign
amongst SEC A/B households. Overall, almost 7.74 million households now stock CDM.11

CDM growth zoomed12

After the launch of the campaign, CDM's growth had not only stopped declining but had become faster than
before. Overall, during the seven years of the campaign CDM's volume grew at 20% CAGR.

This growth rate was faster than every competitor brand in the category,13despite CDM being the biggest brand
in the category, and therefore having the largest base.
Clearly, the shift in strategy and the idea not only reversed the declining growth rate, but also supercharged
CDM growth!

Lessons learned
Globally, indulgence and reward are the core platforms for chocolate communications.

In India, however, they had to be questioned before CDM could tap the huge potential offered by the population.
Cultural and ethnographic understanding helped us realise that the need state for traditional sweet consumption
was different from that of chocolate.

This resulted in a new need state that CDM developed in India, which would not have been possible if we had
remained within the boundaries of chocolate need states.

The key learning

From this case we learnt that the need states a product addresses may differ across cultures and countries. So
global brands don't necessarily need to change products in order to suit the local cultures when they move into
new markets, perhaps all they need to do is to tap into local need states.

Footnotes

1. Source: Cadbury estimates, 2004

2. Source for both Adults and Teens data: TNS Brand tracking studies: 2005-2011
3. Source: www.afaqs.com articles on its annual list of 'India's Buzziest Brands'
4. Source: Statistics for video links on www.youtube.com available on the page itself
5. Source: Channel statistics for Cadbury India's channel 'CadburyTVCs'
6. Source: Official Facebook pages for 'Cadbury Dairy Milk India' and 'Break Banta Hai' (Kit Kat)
7. Source: TNS Brand Tracking Studies 2004–2007
8. Source: TNS Brand Tracking Studies 2004–2007
9. Source: TNS Tracking Study, 2010
10. Penetration is calculated as 'eating chocolate at least once a month'
11. Source: IMRB Household Panels Studies, 2010 and 2011
12. Source: AC Nielsen Sales Data
13. Source: AC Nielsen Sales Data

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