How Cadbury Dairy Milk leveraged multi-medium marketing to #CheerForAllSports, reaching 16 mn people | #casestudy

This case study explores how Mondelez India with its campaign #CheerForAllSports for Dairy Milk Silk aimed to bring underrepresented sports to the forefront during the IPL fever.

India’s love for cricket shows with the massive audience cheering on cricketers, especially during the Indian Premier League (IPL). However, other sports are yet to gain that fan following. In an attempt to encourage Indians to actively watch all sports, Mondelez India launched its campaign #CheerForAllSports and this case study highlights how it used various mediums to send across the message.

Category Introduction

According to a study by Mintel, India is now one of the world’s fastest-growing chocolate confectionery markets. 

Aided by India’s strong economic growth since the late 2000s, there has been a sharp increase in disposable income across key consumer demographics and regions, which has spurred per capita consumption. This, in turn, has coincided with favourable factors like the shifting consumer demographics, low per capita consumption of chocolates as well as evolving snacking patterns.

Millennial and postmillennial generations (those born after 1980) now account for the largest consumer demographic in India – and, instead of waiting for special occasions to buy chocolate, they now make purchases for regular consumption. The State of Snacking report suggested that 8 in 10 attest chocolate has become a staple in their diet. Additionally, 83% believe that chocolate is good for the soul, indicating towards the strongly evolving consumption patterns that pose great growth opportunities for the category.

Brand Introduction 

First launched in India in 1948, Cadbury Dairy Milk has become synonymous with chocolate for generations of Indians and over time defined the taste of chocolate in the country. Since then, Mondelez India— with Cadbury Dairy Milk, has continues to build on its 75-year legacy. 

Since the 1990s, Cadbury Dairy Milk has tapped into the country’s young consumer base through relatable campaigns and products. Whether it was the iconic ad ‘Asli Swad Zindagi Ka’, or making space in moment-led celebrations with campaigns like ‘Shubh Aaramabh’ and ‘Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye’, the brand has tried to keep consumer at its core.

Progressing along the same lines and adapting to the evolving consumer landscape, the brand over the years moved from storytelling to story-doing and introduced the purpose-led theme of generosity to establish a stronger connection with the current generation that is far more evolved and demands action and accountability. 

The Generosity journey has led to campaigns like ‘Not Just a Cadbury’ ad to help small businesses during the Diwali season, #GoodLuckGirls to acknowledge the contribution of women in sports, the recent ‘Kisi Aur Ki Khushi Mein Shaamil Hoke Dekhiye’ campaign encouraging people to partake in other’s joyous moments/milestones, and #CheerForAllSports launched during IPL to acknowledge and cheer for Indian athletes across all sports.

Summary

After #ThankYou initiative, which was done at the back of the brand’s collaboration with Mumbai Indians to thank their staff who worked tirelessly in the background, the brand took it a notch higher by reimagining its iconic advertisement from 1994 ‘Asli Swaad Zindagi Ka’ by simply swapping the gender roles and showcasing women in cricket batting it out for the country.

This paved the way for Mondelez India to launch its 2023 campaign, #CheerForAllSports with Cadbury Dairy Milk. The multichannel campaign aimed to bring India together to cheer for athletes across other sports such as boxing, hockey, table tennis, etc. The idea was to cheer on sportspersons competing in major international tournaments in underrepresented sports during IPL fever.

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Problem Statement/Objective 

• Building on the brand’s generosity narrative and taking it a step further.
• Addressing a gap in the Indian sports scenario and cheer for the unacknowledged Indian players beyond cricket, who will be playing during the same time as the current IPL season.
• Building brand love and engagement for Cadbury Dairy Milk.

Brief

The brand desired to create a meaningful impact by emphasizing the brand’s purpose to evoke generosity. Additionally, the brand sought to stand out amidst the crowded cricket season.

Creative Idea 

Keeping up with the generosity initiative, the team thought of capturing the campaign with the idea, ‘Har Indian team ki Khushi Mein Shaamil Hokar Dekho’, thereby taking the idea of generosity to other sports by cheering on sportspersons who were competing in major international tournaments in these underrepresented sports at the same time as the IPL fever was sweeping across the country.

Challenges

The biggest challenge was to conceptualize an entire ecosystem that would push Indians to easily cheer for and lend their support to all sports. This phygital ecosystem was painstakingly engineered through associations with sporting federations to integrate live digital and on-ground fan experiences.

Execution 

Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, any other social media platforms  

Cadbury Dairy Milk took a multichannel approach and leveraged several media platforms including TV and social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Cadbury started cheering for all sports on its social media platforms.

The brand also partnered with Star Sports, Jio Cinema and some of the popular sports celebrities in India. To further the reach of the campaign, the brand also partnered with SportsKeeda, a global sports content platform.

The campaign video was released.

Cricketers also gave a shout-out to other sports.

More brands joined in.

Digital – SEO, ad words, ad placements, etc 

The idea was brought to life through a tech-enabled engagement wherein the special INR 100 pack of Cadbury Dairy Milk had a unique QR code. The code, when scanned, led to a microsite with a calendar of other sporting events during the same period as the IPL season.

This dedicated microsite allowed users to sign up for reminders and included links to watch and support India in other sports. Taking this a step further, the brand arranged for screens to be put up at stadiums where Indian athletes played, to showcase fans who joined the stream to cheer for the Indian athletes. When a viewer joined the link shared via the microsite, they actually joined thousands more who came together to cheer the Indian athletes from across the world.

Further, to engage with the audience on e-commerce platforms, Cadbury activated a quiz on Amazon, which allowed users to get more discounts on Cadbury products by answering questions about the sports ecosystem in India.

Results 

The #CheerForAllSports campaign garnered a reach of 160 million individuals, drawing participation from over 5 million individuals who actively cheered for the Indian athletes. Additionally, live screening of India matches accounted for 400 minutes of airtime.

The hashtag #CheerForAllSports gained organic traction, as sports enthusiasts used the hashtag to share sports-related news and celebrate the accomplishments of their favourite sportspeople. 

The campaign led to 7 Lakh registrations on the brand microsite to watch and cheer on Indian athletes as they attained new heights across different tournaments on the World Stage.

The last two international competitions – the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships Finals 2023 and the FIH Pro League 2023 – closed out the campaign roster in May 2023 and witnessed Indians #CheerForAllSports.

Nitin Saini, Vice President, Marketing, Mondelez India said, “Over the years, Cadbury Dairy Milk has been successfully fostering the spirit of generosity through its heartfelt campaigns. We have been consistently shining a spotlight on the unacknowledged, such as the ground staff and women in sports. Therefore, this year, we took the idea of generosity a step forward to other sports with Cadbury Dairy Milk’s #CheerForAllSports campaign. In a cricket-loving nation like India, laurels won by athletes of other sports can often go unnoticed. Through this campaign, we aimed to change this narrative and get India to cheer for athletes across other sports.”

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