Happy Easter everyone from everyone here at CDG!

Easter is a great time for everyone for kids and big kids alike.

These year’s statistics predict that children will eat 8,000 calories worth of chocolate and sweets this weekend. A survey carried out by vouchercloud.com with 2118 parents, who have at least one child under 10, revealed that a parent will spend on average €34 on Easter chocolate, and that each child will receive on average approximately 8 Easter eggs, amounting to a total of approximately 9.5 million Easter eggs worth €34 million. A whopping 1,000 tons of chocolate will be consumed in only 4 days. Wow…hat’s some serious amount of chocolate!!

This year we decide to take a look at how a brand within this amazing chocolate market sector uses timely events to promote their brand awareness. We decided to pick a well-known brand, Cadbury; what are they up to this year, leading up to the Easter weekend 2015?

It seems like Easter now starts in February, or should I say the campaigns starts in February, before Valentine’s Day and these campaigns change and drive forward the desire for chocolate consumption. It’s nearly getting as bad as Christmas starting in October, now leading right up to the day before. Off course the reason this is done is to stimulate consumer demand and supporting brand awareness, so that when shoppers come to the critical point of purchase they will have a feel good experience in their minds about certain brands. It’s not blind science it’s just psychology and chemistry.

So how did Cadbury start their promotion this year? Well…looking at their Facebook page we can immediately spot their GOO-ING Campaign.

This is a very clever promotion that works virally. The campaign uses high impact contact points like a train station, where people have to wait and stop to catch the next train to their next destination. A large billboard poster, standing prominently in the train platform area, states “How you GOO-ING”. As passengers wait, taking the time to text and look at their mobile media etc. they are suddenly met by a voice saying how are you Goo – ing? and asking how are you Goo-rgeous ladies? This off course gets an immediate reaction and people start to engage and laugh and think about how they are becoming part of the campaign. It brings a delight of 5/10 minutes to their day and off course it’s an experience they will share with all their friends telling them how they were caught out at the train station by a secret invisible voice gaining their specific attention. Very clever!!!

So Cadbury picked a place where people had to stop, a place where most likely they will have time to use their mobile phones as they are not on the run, a place where they may have to sit for 10 minutes before a train will take them to their next destination. During this time they will most likely  text or tweet, follow or engage on social media and in turn, send a viral message that reads like ‘hey have you been caught with the Goo – ing crème egg phantom? ‘. So it’s a giggle and a laugh but it’s what people like, something to amuse their day, a 10-minute splurge to change their typical day and turn it into a fun day to remember. This campaign was used for Valentine’s Day and the hope was for this brand awareness campaign to reinforce the brand name as well as driving sales. Valentine’s Day has now become the precursor to the big weekend, which is Easter. And between Valentine’s Day and Easter they work hard to stock the shelves and to further promote the brand. It’s amazing because after Easter the fall in chocolate consumption is more that 60%; statistics show that this is due to people thinking about the enormous amount of the luxury food they ingurgitated and start thinking about slimming and getting into shape for the summer.  Knowing this you would think the brands would conjure up a new campaign to leverage these thoughts!!…or maybe not?? I suppose like everything, it remains to be seen.

So with this been said go on…Indulge! Why not, you only live once and a good quantity of chocolate kindly presented to you by your loved ones, will surely not go amiss, it’s only natural that we enjoy life and its pleasure moments. But be aware that our next generation is being pursued by the big brands in many ways and likewise you need to think about your own brand and what you can learn from what the big brands do. They spend hundreds of thousands on these campaigns and have very clever Digital Design Agencies helping them to pursue their target markets, so learning from the big boys can easily translate to areas of your business and how you can build your brand awareness.

We can see advertising and niche promotions can be very effective when mixed with digital marketing and social media campaigns. Social media can then become the carrier for promotions and be quite a powerful tool, especially when used to engage consumers. Like the campaigns of these huge chocolate brands can lead to viral engagement, this too can be achieved by small brands: your customers will directly promote your brand and reduce your need for larger budgets spent in  advertising and promotional campaigns.

The bigger brands have learned that they can achieve their goals by making their customers do all the work and create more brand awareness. You too can use a similar approach with your brand. Take the idea and interweave it within your brand promotion and use your customer’s endorsements to help drive your brand awareness and capture your market.

So with this in mind, next time you bite into a lump of chocolate…maybe over this long weekend…think about how that brand of chocolate landed there, instead of another brand and use these techniques to inspire you on your next marketing campaign.

I hope you enjoyed this article. I If you thin your brand needs a little refresh, please contact us now.

Wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Easter form all the team here at CDG.

Some stats for your day: