Gorilla marketing (sic!)

This post is by Bryony Saunders, Marketing Executive with The Marketing Eye.

Advertising is not about simply promoting a product. We are no longer satisfied with companies telling us how good their products are or how unbeatable their price is, these days we expect to be entertained as well.

A perfect example of a company that has managed to entertain us is Cadbury’s.

Cadbury’s recent run of adverts has both bemused and entertained us. I mean, a gorilla playing the drums along to a Phil Collins track?!!

‘Gorilla’ has quickly become one of the most popular and critically acclaimed TV ads of recent years. This has been followed by trucks racing each other to a Queen soundtrack and, most recently, children with dancing eyebrows!

But where is the chocolate? Not once is the chocolate bar shown or mentioned.

The adverts help us form a relationship with the brand. They make us smile and implant a sense of, not how the chocolate tastes or looks, but how it and Cadbury's make us feel: happy and ready to go...just great. The adverts are so different, so obscure that everybody is talking about them.

We have all seen Cadbury's chocolate, we know what it looks like and we know what it tastes like, we don't need telling again. The marketing people at Cadbury's have seen this and have had the courage to stand out from the crowd and do something different.

Update - There is a good article on the BBC website on the same topic.